An ambulance leaves the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Falls Church, Virginia on Tuesday. Police have lifted the lockdown at the hospital after a prisoner being treated there escaped.
Reuters/Washington
An armed prisoner was on the run in a stolen car on Tuesday after escaping from a northern Virginia hospital where a shot was fired during a struggle with a guard, police said.
The prisoner, accused bank robber Wossen Assaye, 42, broke free from a private security guard at the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Falls Church, Virginia, and fled with the guard's weapon, the Fairfax County Police Department said on its Twitter account.
Police said a car stolen by Assaye had been found and that he might have stolen a second car. They initially said he might be with his girlfriend, whose photo was posted on Twitter but who was not named.
Assaye had been held by the nearby city of Alexandria and was taken to the hospital about 15 miles (24 km) west of Washington on Friday after he tried to harm himself, according to police.
While at the hospital, Assaye overpowered the guard early on Tuesday and took his gun, police said. One shot was fired, but no one was injured before the suspect fled wearing only a hospital gown, police said.
Assaye is charged with the March 20 robbery of the Apple Federal Credit Union in Alexandria. An affidavit in US District Court said he fled the bank on a bicycle with about $1,800.
A man matching Assaye's description is suspected in 11 other bank robberies in northern Virginia. Assaye, who is on probation, was in prison from 2000 to 2013 for burglary and robbery convictions, the affidavit said.
Fairfax County Police spokesman Roger Henriquez told CBS News that the first vehicle stolen by Assaye had been driven by a woman who discovered him in the back seat.
The woman fled, but it is unclear if the car was still moving when she escaped.
Henriquez said that either during the woman's escape or when Assaye was driving, the car sustained heavy front-end damage.
Authorities from state, local and federal agencies were assisting in the search.
