Police searching area for prisoner who escaped from Fairfax Hospital
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| Assaye [FCPD] |
Update: The suspect was captured and arrested in D.C., at the intersection of Minnesota Street and 25th Street, S.E., shortly before noon.
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Police are searching the area for a prisoner who escaped from Inova Fairfax Hospital early Tuesday morning and is said to be “armed and dangerous.”
According to news reports, the prisoner, identified as Wossen Assaye, had been taken to the hospital after a suicide attempt. He overpowered a security guard at about 3 a.m., took his gun, and escaped. One shot was fired, but no one was injured.
Assaye had been held at the William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria since March 21 on federal charges related to bank robbery.
Assaye has been reported as driving a car he hijacked from a woman at about 7 a.m. at Backlick Road and Cindy Lane in Annandale. The car is a 2002 silver Toyota Camry with front-end damage and Virginia license plate number XZP-8153.
Police later said Assaye might have switched to another car and is now driving a dark gray 2008 Hyundai Elantra with Virginia tags XTU-5024.
As of 10:15 a.m., police were searching around Oak Court, Whispering Lane, and the area around the Forest Hollow pool on Old Columbia Pike in Annandale.
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| Police searching Whispering Lane. [NBC News Channel 4] |
According to NBC News Channel 4, a resident of the Backlick area, Preston Hall, heard a crash and a woman screaming early this morning. He came out of his house to find that Assaye had crashed into his wife’s car in the driveway. The woman who had been hijacked was able to escape and ran away. Hall followed Assaye all the way to the Home Depot on Little River Turnpike, when he heard the man was armed and dangerous and gave up the chase.
Assaye is described as black, six feet tall, weighing 170 pounds, wearing a hospital gown and no shoes. Police believe he might have later picked up his girlfriend.
According to police, Assaye is the “Bicycle Bandit,” who escaped on a bicycle after several local bank robberies. Police believe was involved in a dozen bank robberies since October 2013 but was charged with just one – the March 20 robbery of Apple Federal Credit Union in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County.
Assaye had been in prison from 2000 to 2013 after being convicted of burglary and robbery in the late 1990s.
The incident tied up traffic for hours as SWAT teams searched the area. A lockdown at the hospital was lifted at about 8 a.m. During the lockdown, hospital employees were told to go to Falls Church High School where a shuttle bus would pick them up.
Yup, there in my neighborhood, SWAT teams, helicopters chasing up and down Old Columbia Pike. Love living here, so much excitement.
Mason is turning into one huge criminal cesspool.
Gimme a break with this cesspool crap. Have you actually spent any time in a location deserving of being called a criminal cesspool?
Anon 10:40 – He could have run to any neighborhood, you dummy. He just happened to pick ours.
The voice of reason strikes again.
Anyone else listening to scanner app? They are at old col pike x elmdale now looking for him. Right behind us.
Just walked onto golf course and told golfers to get off the course and why. We're on 4th green. Guy said no. He's headed to 5th where the cops are. Smh
"Mason is turning into one huge criminal cesspool"
This statement makes absolutely no sense… Dude escaped a hospital what does Mason district has to do with it other than having a good hospital?
INOVA Fairfax might be in the Providence district.
Its called the Mason Magnet to criminals, low lifes, illegals and white vans.
Pat Collins reporting from the Lynch house on Old Col Pike. Maybe he can ask them why the always have 50 cars parked in their yard.
Thats why the AH came to Mason, plenty of cars to hide out in and white vans too, with MD tags too. I am so glad we have finally gained national recognition.
Im sorry but Assaye sounds like another piece of crap national that needs to be returned to sender.
Thank you FFX County and DC Police for doing such a great job. Now if only our political leaders can keep the crap out of our neighborhoods.
And for the NIMBYs this was in my backyard and as long as this Mason/Annandale remains depressed we will see more of this.
i can't tell if y'all are real good trolls or just complete morons.
But we can tell what you are.
Assaye was imported from Ethiopia.
Return him to Ethiopia where he came from. Maybe someday we will have a serious entry process to get into this country so that we don't have to spend our tax money cleaning up after other countries' crap.
RETURN TO SENDER
"Return him to Ethiopia…." Not likely. Each of those carjacking charges carries a minimum sentence of 15 years.
Well guess who's paying him to stay here, live, board and eat in the US. Me, you and everyone else who has a legitimate job here, unless you drive a white van, then perhaps you don't.
Return to Sender
LMFAO. So true.
Fairfax Hospital IS NOT in Mason District. It's in the Providence District.
Penny just took another opportunity to get her name in the paper.