Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Police shoot dead fugitive Maurice Clemmons suspected of gunning down four officers in a Seattle coffee shop .


Mourners lay flowers and light candles during a vigil for the fallen officers

A procession of police vehicles escorts the bodies of four slain police officers as they pass beneath a U.S. flag in Parkland

A man and a woman write in a book of condolences at a memorial for the four slain police officers in front of the Lakewood Police Department in Lakewood, Washington yesterday


Police cars block access to the Leschi neighbourhood of Seattle early today as they surround Clemmons house

Siege: Smoke rises after police set off an explosive device at convicted robber Maurice Clemmons' house in Seattle in the early hours of this morning. Police were hunting Clemmons in connection with the deaths of four officers, gunned down in a coffee house ambush yesterday

A police car sits in front of the Forza Coffee Company where the four police officers were killed

Murdered in cold blood: (Clockwise from top left) Lakewood Police officers Greg Richards, 42, Mark Renninger, 39, Tina Griswold, 40, and 37-year-old Ronald Owens were looking at paperwork when they were ambushed

A solemn police officer directs traffic away from the crime scene



Suspect: Police are searching for Maurice Clemmons after four police officers were shot dead in a Washington State coffee shop

People stand in front of Rollies Tavern as a procession of police vehicles passes by, escorting the bodies of the four slain police officers



Hundreds of police officers flooded the area searching for the lone gunman

The town just outside of Seattle, Washington where the four officers were gunned down

Sheriff's deputies look over a rifle they removed from the Seattle home of Maurice Clemmons yesterday. A Swat team stormed the house after an 11-hour siege, but Clemmons was not there


Maurice Clemmons' house in Seattle after yesterday's siege. The murder suspect has now gone on the run



U.S. police have killed the man accused of gunning down four officers in a Seattle coffee shop.

Maurice Clemmons, 37, was shot dead by officers in a Seattle neighbourhood early this morning, a police spokesman said.

He had been on the run since the coffee shop ambush on Sunday.

Police had believed Clemmons was believed to be wounded, armed, and on the run after slipping through a police net yesterday.

He was charged with the murders of the four officers yesterday.

Last night it was claimed that the day before the shootings, Clemmons - a convicted robber who was bailed less than a week before Sunday's massacre - made a chilling boast.

He told friends to watch the news because 'I am going to kill some cops', police said.

'Unfortunately, no one acted on that statement,' a spokesman said yesterday.

After Sunday's shooting, Seattle police had laid siege to the house of Clemmons, 37, for eleven hours yesterday.

But when police entered the house, Clemmons was nowhere to be found. It is not clear if he was ever in the house at all.

Now he is believed to be on the run, suffering from a stomach wound that could become fatal if not treated.

Police have closed an elementary school in the area and are searching surrounding houses.

Clemmons is believed to have been wounded by one of the four officers during the execution-style killers.

Two were killed sitting in their seats, one had risen to their feet, and the fourth fought the gunman all the way to the door of the face, police said yesterday.

'We have determined that in fact he has been shot,' said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff. 'He may be deceased from his gunshot wound.'

Troyer also described Clemmons as the 'number one suspect' in the slayings.

ABCNews reported that Clemmons, a convicted robber, has now been charged with the murders of the four officers.

Police and a Swat team surrounded Clemmons' house yesterday after a tip-off led them to his door.

Reports said police used a loudspeaker and even a robot as they attempted to persuade Clemmons to come out of the house.

'This is one of the toughest decisions you'll make in your life but you need to man up,' one negotiator reportedly told him.

They also fired tear gas and are believed to have fired shots in an attempt to persuade Clemmons to come outside.

However when they entered the house he was nowhere to be found.

Police were able to detain friends of Clemmons who allegedly helped him overnight, ABC reported.

It was those friends who reportedly told police about the wound to his abdomen.

Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated convictions for robbery and theft.

He was also recently arrested and charged in Pierce County in Washington state for third-degree assault on a police officer and second-degree rape of a child.

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted Clemmons' 95-year prison sentence.

Huckabee, who was criticised during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for the number of clemencies and commutations he granted, cited Clemmons' age at the time of the sentence.

After his release from prison, Clemmons violated his parole and was returned to jail in July 2001.

He was released March 18, 2004, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

The four officers were with the 100-member police department of Lakewood, which adjoins the unincorporated area of Parkland, where the shootings took place.

The city identified the victims as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards 42.

All four were parents.

Troyer said one of those officers fought with the gunman and may have wounded him before the officer died just outside the doorway.

He told reporters that investigators were asking area medical providers to report any people wounded by gunshots.

Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were shot dead while sitting in the shop, and a third was killed after standing up.

The fourth apparently struggled with the gunman out the doorway and 'gave up a good fight,' getting off a few shots before he was either shot there or succumbed to earlier wounds.

'We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight ... that he fought the guy all the way out the door,' Troyer said.

He added: 'We hope that he hit him.'

Troyer said the gunman entered the coffee house and walked up to the counter as if to place an order.

A barista saw a gun when the man opened his jacket and fled out the back door.

The man then turned and opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops, killing the three men and one woman in what Troyer described as a targeted ambush.

Troyer said the attack was clearly targeted at the officers, not a robbery gone bad.

'This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers,' he said.

Troyer said the officers were catching up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts when they were attacked at 8:15 a.m. Sunday.

'There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform,' Troyer said.

There was no indication of any connection with the Halloween night shooting of a Seattle police officer.

The suspect in that shooting remains hospitalised.

'We won't know if it's a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved,' Troyer said.

'We don't even have a suspect ID right now.'

Troyer estimated that a couple of hundred officers from the Washington State Patrol and multiple surrounding police agencies in the area were at the crime scene, with some coming on their own time.

On Sunday night, a motorcade of dozens of police cars and motorcycles with lights flashing escorted the bodies of the four officers from the crime scene to the Pierce County medical examiner's office in Tacoma.

The motorcade rolled under a giant American flag hanging from fire truck ladders.

'We have no motive at all,' Troyer said. 'I don't think when we find out what it is, it will be anything that makes any sense or be worth it.'

Two employees and a few other customers were in the shop during the attack.

All were interviewed by the Pierce County sheriff's investigators.
Some are in shock. They are very upset,' Troyer said. 'They are the ones who are going to put together for us how this happened.'

The Forza Coffee Shop, part of a popular local chain, is on a side street near McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma.

The shop is in a small retail center alongside two restaurants, a cigar store and a nail salon.

Brad Carpenter, founder and owner of Forza Coffee, said his staff was being interviewed by police, and that his main concern was for the families of the police officers.

'I'm a retired police officer, so this really hits close to home for me,' said Carpenterr.

Troyer said the Lakewood officers were two blocks outside their jurisdiction, and the coffee shop was a popular place for officers from surrounding jurisdictions to meet and share information.

Streets around the coffee shop were blocked off and a police helicopter hovered over a large crowd of investigators.
TV video showed police taking possession of a pickup truck parked in a grocery store in Parkland.

Troyer said investigators were checking surveillance video from multiple sources, trying to identify a possible getaway car.

Dave Gabrielson, a clerk at Foot Mart about a block away from the coffee shop, told the newspaper all was quiet when he opened the store at 8am About 30 minutes later, 'All of a sudden a million cops were zooming up and down the road,' Gabrielson said.

He said he saw officers bring a police dog into a nearby apartment complex.

Last month, Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton was shot and killed Halloween night as he was sitting in a cruiser with trainee Britt Sweeney.

Sweeney was grazed in the neck.

Authorities say the man charged with that shooting also firebombed four police vehicles in October as part of a 'one-man war' against law enforcement.

Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested after being wounded in a firefight with police days after the Seattle shooting. He remains hospitalized in stable condition, the hospital said Sunday.

The officers killed Sunday were a patrol squad made up of three officers and their sergeant.

No threats had been made against them or other officers in the region, sheriff's officials said. Their families have been notified.

'We lost people we care about. We're working to find out who did this and deal with him.'

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said she was 'shocked and horrified' by the killings.


-----------

-------------

--------------

----------------

RELATED POSTS:-


http://www.wikio.com
Labels: , , , , , ,

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Today Top Recent Posts Here.


Blogger Widgets
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Entertainment News

 

Minibox 3 Column Blogger Template by James William at 2600 Degrees