By Shannon Tyler
The Idaho Statesman
BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho prosecutor has cleared a Boise Police Department officer who mistakenly shot at and injured an Idaho Department of Correction officer during a chaotic ambush at a Boise hospital perpetrated by a prisoner and an accomplice.
The incident took place on March 20, 2024, when a man later identified as Nicholas Umphenour fired shots at IDOC officers at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in a plot to help inmate Skylar Meade escape custody while being treated for self-inflicted injuries.
Boise police responded to the shooting, and Officer Wayne Anderson shot at a man police believed to be the gunman — only it was IDOC Officer Christopher Wilske, who was “struck with shrapnel and/or debris from the shots,” according to a report from Valley County Prosecutor Brian Naugle.
The Ada County Critical Incident Task Force, led by the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the shooting and forwarded its findings to Naugle to review. Naugle determined that Anderson’s actions were justified.
“Reasonable mistakes of facts” led Anderson to fire two shots from his rifle during the incident, Naugle stated in his report.
Body camera footage, security footage and all other information showed that because of a lack of communication between IDOC officers and law enforcement, and because police were given a mistaken identification of the possible suspect, Anderson was shooting at someone believed to be the perpetrator, according to Naugle.
He also determined that police were justified in using deadly force in their response.
“The lack of specific information about the identities of the suspects and the IDOC officers made it impossible for them to know that they were firing on an IDOC officer rather than the suspect, who, unbeknownst to them, had already fled the scene,” Naugle’s report said.
911 callers gave mistaken suspect description
IDOC officers were escorting the 33-year-old Meade to a vehicle outside the hospital’s emergency room when Umphenour opened fire on them, according to previous Idaho Statesman reporting and police reports.
Umphenour injured two IDOC officers, and Meade was able to escape and join his accomplice in a getaway vehicle. The two quickly fled, and were caught roughly 36 hours later after heading to North Idaho and then back down to the Twin Falls area. They since have pleaded guilty in the Saint Al’s attack and entered Alford pleas to first-degree murder charges in the killing of two men in N. Idaho.
Hospital security footage showed that an uninjured IDOC officer dragged one of his injured colleagues inside the ER to medical personnel, and another followed inside. Wilske took cover behind a corner wall near the entrance, and IDOC officers kept their guns pointed at the doors “in order to secure the emergency room entry in the event that the shooter returned,” Naugle noted.
Naugle wrote that IDOC officers did not check with or notify law enforcement dispatch of their location, but did alert IDOC superiors.
Shortly after shots were fired, several Saint Al’s medical staff called Ada County Dispatch. According to the report, none of the callers knew that Meade was an IDOC prisoner or that the people with him were law enforcement.
One caller stated that a gunman shot an officer, but did not specify what kind. The person also stated that the suspect was in the hospital bay with a pistol at that moment. The caller described him as 6 feet tall, with a dark beard and light skin.
That description matched the physical profile of one of the IDOC officers, who had a semiautomatic pistol, according to Naugle.
Once Boise police arrived, multiple officers approached the ambulance bay entrance, which has sliding glass doors. Body camera footage released along with Naugle’s report showed officers outside those doors with guns drawn, and someone is heard alerting the other officers that a man inside was pointing a handgun at the doors.
The report said police officers were able to “briefly observe” the man with the gun, and based on the information given, believed that he was the gunman.
Seeing Wilske in a position of cover inside the ER with a gun, Anderson discharged his rifle twice. His bullets struck the wall near where Wilske was standing, and the IDOC officer sustained non-life-threatening injuries. He was attended to by medical personnel, according to Naugle’s report.
Naugle wrote that BPD officers had “little reason” to believe the two men were IDOC officers because they were in a position of cover that prevented any view of the “small insignia” on their shirts, and police had not been notified that any other law enforcement was there.
City cites communication shortfalls in OPA report
The City of Boise’s Office of Police Accountability agreed with the findings of the CITF, an internal Boise Police Department review and Naugle’s determination that the shooting was justified. The OPA review also stated that communication issues significantly contributed to the misidentification in this incident.
The review also found that dispatchers “did not communicate sufficiently among themselves.”
After reviewing all 911 calls during the incident and information provided to responding officers, the OPA found that there was information dispatch failed to relay to officers. In one call, a person told dispatch that an inmate was being treated and IDOC officers were escorting him.
“If this information had been passed to BPD officers, it is likely that responding personnel would have coordinated with IDOC and obtained further information before entering the scene,” according to the OPA review.
The review recommended refreshed training in active shooter response tactics and better coordination with IDOC in case of a high-risk inmate transport within Boise police jurisdiction.
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