A Utah Department of Corrections officer was shot and killed today during a brazen escape by a white supremacist prisoner.
Authorities said Stephen Anderson, 60, of Bluffdale, was killed inside a medical exam room at University Hospital's Orthopaedic clinic with Curtis Allgier, an inmate with a history of burglary, forgery and weapons violations.
"This is a time of mourning for us," said corrections chief Tom Patterson. "This is, of course, one of the risks in the job we perform."
Police said Allgier was scheduled to undergo an MRI this morning for lower back pain. Anderson was alone in the medical exam room with Allgier.
"In the exam room, something happened," said University of Utah Police Chief Scott Folsom. "We presume an altercation. There was signs of a struggle in the room."
Folsom said it appears Allgier took the officer's gun and fired "at least one shot," hitting Anderson in the head.
From there, police said Allgier, 28, fled out the front doors with a gun in his hand, where he stopped an SUV at the intersections of Wasatch Drive, Foothill Drive and Wakara Way, and forced the two people inside the vehicle out onto the street.
Salt Lake City police familiar with Allgier drove to a residence near 350 South and 900 West where a woman who knows him lives. Police cars responding to information that Allgier was in the area collided at the intersection of 900 West and 400 South. The crash damaged three police cars and another vehicle. Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Dan Brewster said all the injuries were minor, including an officer who sustained blisters on his face after an airbag deployed. A woman and a child were injured as well.
The impact of the collision was so forceful the trunk of a patrol car popped open, sending a ballistics helmet flying through the air into the windshield of a detective's car.
Police cars pursued the blue Ford Explorer south on Interstate 15 and onto the west I-215 belt route and then north to the State Road 201 freeway, from which the chase turned onto Redwood Road.
Speeds were in excess of 100 mph during the morning rush hour. Near the Redwood Road exit on I-215, officers were able to spike the vehicles tires. Despite the rear tire being driven on its rim, Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Rich Brede said the man was able to drive the SUV for a while at about 70 mph.
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The chase ended when the man drove the heavily-damaged vehicle into the drive-thru of an Arby's restaurant at 1700 S. Redwood Road. Mark Setterman was at the intersection when the chase reached Arby's. He said a blue SUV drove across the sidewalk before going to the drive-thru.
"Then I saw 50 or 60 cop cars right behind him," he said. "They started to go right after him, and drove right into the drive-thru."
Shots were fired in the parking lot, and at least one officer was injured, but not seriously, before the man fled inside. Shirley Smiley, who works at Trolley Square and was in that mall during a shooting spree earlier this year, said she was just leaving from the south entrance of the restaurant when a man entered the north doors of the Arby's.
She then "heard one shot fired" before officers told her to get down on the pavement.
Soon afterwards, Smiley, 57, saw one employee, later identified by police as the man who disarmed Algier, dragged out of the restaurant. All together, she thought there were about 10 customers and four employees in Arby's.
The Explorer Algier had been driving remained parked in the drive-thru, pinned to the curb with its right tire missing.
Officers eventually found Algier hiding in the manager's office, where he was arrested.
Witnesses described seeing several people, including Arby's employees, leaving the restaurant with injuries.
Brede said one man was "cut" after having been struck by some sort of object.
"He had scrapes and scratches on his face," said Fawn Delaney, who lives in a nearby apartment complex. "He had a big ol' beach towel wrapped around his head."
He was taken to the hospital but did not appear to be seriously injured. Two women employees were also seen leaving the restaurant, visibly shaken and in tears.
Anderson was a 22-year veteran of the Utah Department of Corrections, Patterson said.
The officer's family told the Deseret Morning News this afternoon that he was a generous, kind and caring man who was dedicated to his family.
"I don't think he had an enemy in the world," said Shawn Anderson, who himself is a corrections officer. "He was an amazing kind of guy who would do anything to help you out. Just the greatest kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back."
Shawn Anderson said his family, who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are receiving help and support from their ward.
As he was being driven away from the Arby's restaurant, Allgier smiled briefly at a Deseret Morning News reporter.
Utah prison officials said they would be investigating if the white supremacist gang member had been plotting the escape. Recently, Allgier had fallen out of favor with fellow prison gang members and had been kept in a single cell in a maximum security unit at the Point of the Mountain.
In 2000, Allgier was convicted of forgery which landed him a jail sentence. In 2001, he was convicted of escape after failing to return to jail after being on work release, according to federal court documents.
Allgier, 27, was named as a Public Enemy No. 1 by the Salt Lake Metro Gang unit and was arrested on Nov. 4, 2006 after SWAT officers converged on the Candlewood Suites hotel in Cottonwood Heights.
At the time, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Chris Bertram identified Allgier as a parole fugitive.
"He was armed with a handgun. He still kept the gun and tried to get away — that tells you something. He was a dangerous person," he said.
In the incident, officers evacuated the third floor and part of the second floor of the hotel, where Allgier had barricaded himself in a room. A K-9 unit was sent into the attic of the building and Allgier either fell or jumped through the ceiling, landing in a bathroom where he was arrested.
According to federal court records, Allgier on June 14 was sentenced to 104 months in prison for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Records say he had a 9mm high point handgun.
In a sentencing memorandum filed by Allgier's public defense attorney, it states: "Mr. Allgier was born into white supremacy." The attorney added that his family introduced him to a "criminal mindset" as a very young child.
U.S. Marshal Mike Wingert said Allgier was still in the custody of the Utah State Prison when the shooting took place, but the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had a detainer on him and were expecting an order to have him possibly moved to a federal corrections facility in Terre Haute, Ind. Allgier was expected to serve a nine-year prison sentence.
The University contracts with the state prison to treat the medical needs of inmates. Patterson said Allgier's visit today at the clinic was one of several trips he had made because of a complaint of back pain.
A safety assessment showed it was appropriate to have Allgier in a one-on-one situation with an officer, he added.
"It would appear that policy was followed," Patterson. "We are looking carefully at that to see if policies were followed and secondarily to see if they need to be modified."
Allgier's heavily tattooed face made him an infamous celebrity on multiple crime Web sites and blogs. On Friday night, MSNBC featured Allgier in a special documentary about gang-affiliated inmates in the Utah State Prison.
Today's fatal shooting of a corrections officer is the first in nearly 20 years. In 1985, a bailiff was shot and seriously wounded during an escape attempt at the Salt Lake County courthouse. In 1988, Lt. Fred House was shot and killed during a standoff with members of the Singer-Swapp polygamous family.