An Idaho inmate who led police on a two-day manhunt was described by a former prosecutor as a “vibrant particular person” who got here out of his first jail sentence with neo-Nazi tattoos on his face and physique.
“I used to be really disillusioned that he had fallen into that group, however I wasn’t shocked,” stated Stan Holloway, a former prosecuting lawyer in Twin Falls, Idaho, who dealt with two circumstances involving Skylar Meade, 31. “Jail can change a man.”
Meade and his alleged confederate, Nicholas Umphenour, had been captured Thursday afternoon in Twin Falls. Meade had escaped early Wednesday after he and Umphenor acquired right into a shootout with police whereas Meade was being transported to a corrections facility from a medical heart, authorities stated.
Umphenour, who police stated shot two Idaho corrections officers early Wednesday to interrupt Meade out of custody, had been launched in January from the identical jail Meade was being taken to earlier than they acquired away.
Meade and Umphenour had generally been housed collectively on the Idaho Most Safety Establishment in Kuna, about 12 miles south of Boise, and each had been members of the Aryan Knights jail gang, officers stated Thursday.
Meade was serving a 20-year sentence for firing a number of photographs at regulation enforcement officers throughout a high-speed chase whereas fleeing a visitors cease. He pleaded responsible to aggravated assault, methamphetamine possession, illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a shank in jail.
Holloway, who prosecuted Meade within the case, first met him in 2010, when Meade was charged with grand theft and fraud. Meade was sentenced to 3 to 5 years in jail, Holloway stated.
On the time, Meade seemed to be “a vibrant particular person” who remained principally quiet and respectful throughout courtroom hearings, Holloway stated. So when Meade appeared earlier than him once more in 2016, he was stunned by Meade’s white supremacist tattoos.
“I didn’t suppose he’d come again with an inkling of violence,” Holloway stated. “I simply figured he can be within the system for some time.”
Pictures launched by Boise police present Meade with face tattoos bearing the numbers 1 and 11 — for A and Okay, the primary and eleventh letters of the alphabet, representing Aryan Knights — state Correction Division officers instructed The Related Press. The letters had been additionally tattooed on his stomach.
The Aryan Knights shaped within the mid-Nineties within the Idaho jail system to arrange felony exercise for a choose group of white individuals in custody, in line with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace for Idaho.
Meade had been held in administrative segregation, a sort of solitary confinement, on the Idaho Most Safety Establishment as a result of officers decided he was a extreme safety threat, authorities stated.
Holloway, who identifies as half-Japanese, stated that Meade didn’t look like violent or racist once they first met and that he by no means made racist feedback in courtroom.
“I’ve been known as all types of issues,” he stated. “It tells me I’m doing my job if I get beneath their pores and skin. However I by no means acquired any vibes from Skylar that it bothered him.”