May 14 (UPI) — An inmate who took two hospital employees hostage was shot dead on Saturday by a SWAT team member, authorities said.
Tywon M. Salters, 22, was pronounced dead at the hospital after a 3 1/2-hour standoff at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, a suburb west of Chicago, said Kane County Sheriff’s Lt. Pat Gengler at a news conference.
Salters had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed condition at the hospital since Monday.
After undergoing surgery and waking up around 12:30 p.m., he knocked out a corrections officer guarding him and took his gun.
Witnesses told WBBM-TV that Salters was running around naked wielding the weapon.
He took one nurse hostage inside the area and then moved from the third floor to the ground floor to a small room near the hospital’s emergency room and took another nurse hostage, authorities said. The first hostage escaped.
Around 4 p.m., Salters was killed when SWAT officers moved into the room after negotiators failed to get him out, Gengler said.
“The SWAT team made the decision to make entry into the room. One of the SWAT team operators did discharge his firearm, striking the inmate and killing him,” Gengler said at a news conference.
The lockdown was lifted at Delnor Hospital, which has 159 beds.
Salters had been in custody after being charged with possession of a stolen vehicle from the Elgin Police Department on April 11.
