FALLS CHURCH, Va. — The prisoner who escaped from INOVA Fairfax Hospital with a guard’s gun early Tuesday morning has been captured in D.C., according to Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier and Fairfax County police.
Police say someone who knew about the search for Wossen Assaye from social media alerts spotted him and called police.
Fairfax County Police, U.S. Marshals, the FBI and Virginia State Police were all searching for Wossen Assaye on Tuesday after he overpowered a private security guard at the hospital and took off with a gun at 3 a.m. Police tell us Wossen Assaye stole two cars in Virginia. He was caught exiting a Metrobus at Minnesota Ave. and 25th Street in Southeast D.C., says Greg Cox, Acting Assistant Director of the FBI in Washington.
A source says that he still had hospital scrubs on under some clothes and still had on an ankle chain. Police said earlier that he may have snatched plain clothes and could be wearing a dark jacket and blue jeans. Cox was unsure whether or not the shackles were loosed before his escape.
Fairfax County police say that one shot was fired during the struggle with the guard, but no one was injured. He was under guard by two guards for 24 hours. Assaye was able to overpowered a female guard and take her gun. A male guard then fired one shot at him, according to U.S. Marshal Bobby Matheson.
After Assaye fled, residents in the area were told to shelter in place. The Fairfax County police chief said that police used reverse 911 to notify residents in the area. Earlier, hospital employees were not able to drive onto the property. Instead, they were asked to go to Falls Church High School for a shuttle bus to the hospital.
Police say Assaye stole a silver Toyota Camry. According to officials, a nurse who works at Ft. Belvoir Community Hospital was leaving her home on Hayden Street at 7 a.m. in her 2002 Toyota Camry. When she turned onto Backlick Road she discovered a man in her backseat. Scared, she crashed her car in the driveway of a house at Cindy Lane and Backlick Road. The man, believed to be Assaye, took off in her car. She then ran two blocks to the Backlick Service Center gas station for help.
The gas station manager talked to WUSA9, saying that the woman ran into the station hysterical. She asked him to call 911. According to the manager, she said a man popped up in her backseat as she was driving on Backlick Road. She swerved into Cindy Lane. Based on her description of the man, the manager told her he believed it was the same man that police were looking for who had escaped from the hospital.
Fairfax County police now believe that Assaye entered the car through the trunk at an apartment complex located across the street from the hospital. He kicked through to the back seat, say police, and slightly injured the driver.
Police later found the car abandoned Monterey Drive, which runs between Cindy Lane and Oak Court in Annandale, at 10:30 a.m.. according to Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler. The gun was recovered inside that vehicle.
Assaye was on foot for a short time before carjacking a four-door, 2008 dark silver Hyundai Elantra from someone getting into or out of the car in the 6900 block of Cherry Lane. The car was last seen at Monterey Drive and Little River Turnpike. Police are still searching for this car.
As police searched for Assaye, his mother pleaded for her son to turn himself in to authorities, reports The Washington Post. His mother told the Post that her son had not reached out to her after escaping the hospital but said that she talked to him last week while he was in jail.
Alexandria Sheriff’s Office authorities say that Wossen Assaye was booked into the William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria on federal charges on Saturday, March 21. They say that on Friday, March 27, he attempted suicide with a bed sheet and was transported to Inova Fairfax Hospital for treatment. “Per an agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service, Alexandria deputy sheriffs maintained custody of Assaye for the first 24 hours he was at the hospital before turning custody over to security officers contracted by the U.S. Marshals,” according to the sheriff’s office authorities.
According to a federal affidavit, Assaye was involved in 12 bank robberies within a 17 month time period. He was most recently charged with robbery of the Apple Fed Credit Union in Alexandria on March 20.
Fairfax County police are processing evidence and will pursue any charges related to the incidents on Tuesday, say officials.
Assaye will have his initial appearance at the Alexandria courthouse before Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis at approximately 3 p.m. Tuesday.