JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press
from Philly.com

SALT LAKE CITY - Authorities said a prison inmate out for a medical appointment wrested a gun from a corrections officer and killed him Monday, then led police on a high’speed chase in a stolen sport utility vehicle before his capture at a fast-food restaurant.

Curtis Allgier, whose wears a swastika and the words “skin head” on his heavily tattooed face, fired a shot in the Arby’s that hit no one before a customer at the restaurant snatched the gun, Salt Lake City police Sgt. Rich Brede said.

“It sounds like he was heroic, even though he’s being humble about it,” he said of the 59-year-old customer, who didn’t want to be identified.

Allgier, 27, was captured in an office and taken to jail to await charges.

Allgier got the gun from corrections officer Stephen Anderson while he was in an examination room at the University of Utah orthopedic center awaiting an MRI for back pain around 7:45 a.m., university Police Chief Scott Folsom said.

The procedure requires an officer to replace metal restraints with a plastic “flex cuff,” said Tom Patterson, director of the Utah Department of Corrections.

“There was some sort of altercation. The inmate got hold of the weapon and shot the officer,” Folsom said.

Anderson, 60, a 22-year-veteran, was shot in the head, authorities said.

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