Inmate, accomplice sought after escape

A white supremacist Idaho prison gang member and an accomplice remained on the loose Wednesday after the accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital, police said.

Police identified the man suspected of shooting two corrections officers during the ambush as Nicholas Umphenour. A warrant with a $2 million bond has been issued for his arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said.

Police said the search continues for Umphenour and escaped inmate Skylar Meade, who fled the hospital early Wednesday in a gray Honda Civic.

Three corrections officers were shot and wounded in the brazen attack — two allegedly by Umphenour and one by responding police — during the attack in the ambulance bay at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.

Officials described Meade, 31, as a white supremacist gang member. Meade was sentenced to 20 years in 2017 for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a high-speed chase.

The attack occurred at 2:15 a.m. as Idaho Department of Correction officers prepared to bring Meade back to prison.

One officer shot by the suspect was in critical but stable condition, police said, while the second wounded officer had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The third injured corrections officer also sustained non-life-threatening injuries when a responding officer — incorrectly believing the shooter was still in the emergency room and seeing an armed person near the entrance — opened fire.