US police hunt for white supremacist prisoner after escape from hospital

A white supremacist prison gang member remains on the loose after an accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free him as he was being moved from an Idaho hospital, US police said.

Three prison officers were shot and wounded — two by the accomplice and one by police — during the attack in the ambulance bay at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Centre in Boise.

Police throughout the region were looking for the suspected gunman as well as the escaped inmate, described by officials as white supremacist gang member Skylar Meade.

The 31-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2017 for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a high-speed chase.

The pair fled in a grey four-door car, possibly a Honda Civic, with Idaho plates, police said.

The attack occurred at 2.15am as Idaho Department of Correction officers prepared to bring Meade back to prison.

Department director Josh Tewalt said during a news conference on Wednesday afternoon that Meade was taken to the hospital at 9.35pm on Tuesday after he engaged in “self-injurious behaviour” and medical staff determined he needed emergency care.

One officer shot by the suspect was in a critical but stable condition, police said, while the second wounded officer had serious but not life-threatening injuries.

The third injured corrections officer also sustained not life-threatening injuries when a responding officer — incorrectly believing the gunman was still in the hospital and seeing an armed person near the entrance — opened fire.

“This brazen, violent, and apparently coordinated attack on Idaho Department of Corrections personnel, to facilitate an escape of a dangerous inmate, was carried out right in front of the Emergency Department, where people come for medical help, often in the direst circumstances,” Boise police chief Ron Winegar said.

Meade has face tattoos of the numbers one and 11 — for A and K, the first and 11th letters of the alphabet, representing the Aryan Knights gang he affiliated with, Mr Tewalt said.

Photos released by police also showed an A and K tattooed on his abdomen.

Meade had been held in a type of solitary confinement called administrative segregation at Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, about 12 miles south of Boise, because officials deemed him a severe security risk, Mr Tewalt said.

Meade had been escorted in the ambulance and at the hospital by two uniformed, unarmed officers wearing ballistic vests, tailed by armed staff. Under standard procedure for transporting a high-risk inmate, unarmed guards are on each side of the prisoner while an armed guard follows, he said.

Authorities did not say what security measures were in place when Meade left the hospital, or whether he was handcuffed, shackled or walking on his own.

The attack came amid a wave of gun violence at hospitals and medical centres, which have struggled to adapt to the threats.

A Saint Alphonsus spokesperson said the shooting happened in the ambulance bay by its emergency department.

“All patients and staff are safe, the medical centre campus is safe and secure, and has resumed normal operations. The Emergency Department itself is currently under temporary lockdown while the Boise Police Department completes the investigation,” Leticia Ramirez said.

She said as an added precaution “we have increased security on campus, all entrances to the hospital will be closed” and monitored by hospital security until further notice.