Police looking for ex-con in shooting deaths of 4 police officers in Washington coffee house

Police seek ex-con in Wash. police shootings

SEATTLE — Police say a suspect in the coffee-shop slayings of four officers is holed up at a Seattle house, wounded and possibly dead.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer says negotiators are still trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons.

Authorities have been seeking Clemmons in the deaths of four Lakewood police officers gunned down in a Parkland coffee shop on Sunday morning. They believe the gunman may have been wounded by one of the victims.

Late Sunday, they began to focus on the Seattle house, about 30 miles from the crime scene. Negotiators used loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod Clemmons from hiding.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SEATTLE (AP) — Police searching for the killer of four officers gunned down in a suburban coffee shop used a loudspeaker and explosions early Monday morning to prod a man apparently holed up in a Seattle house to give himself up. Later, gunshots rang through the neighborhood.

Police around the region had been searching for Maurice Clemmons, 37, whom they say was near the coffee shop some 30 miles away from the Seattle house.

Officers surrounding the house shone lights on the house and called out to Clemmons by name, saying: “Mr. Clemmons, I’d like to get you out of there safely. I can tell you this, we are not going away.”

Any response from inside the house was inaudible from the vantage of a photographer for The Associated Press. But shortly thereafter, police began using sirens outside the house, and there were several loud bangs before the negotiator resumed speaking.

“This is one of the toughest decisions you’ll make in your life, but you need to man up.”

Seattle Police spokesman Jeff Kappel declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations; earlier he had said officers weren’t sure Clemmons was even in the house.

“We’re not going to give you a blow-by-blow,” Kappel said.

A few minutes later, more bangs were followed by the sound of breaking glass and then a louder explosion. Later still, gunshots rang out through the dark. Deliberately paced and widely spaced, the shots appeared to be aimed at the house by surrounding police.

Clemmons, 37, who had a lengthy prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago, became the prime target Sunday in the search for the killer of Lakewood Police Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; and Officers Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards 42.

Clemmons is believed to have been in the area around the time of the shooting, but Pierce County Sherriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer declined to say what evidence might link him to the shooting.

Investigators say they know of no reason that Clemmons or anyone else might have had to open fire on the four as they sat working on their laptops early Sunday morning, catching up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts.

“We’re going to be surprised if there is a motive worth mentioning,” said Troyer, who sketched out a scene of controlled and deliberate carnage that spared the employees and other customers at the coffee shop in suburban Parkland, about 35 miles south of Seattle.

“He was very versed with the weapon,” Troyer said. “This wasn’t something where the windows were shot up and there bullets sprayed around the place. The bullets hit their targets.”

Richards’ sister-in-law, Melanie Burwell, called the shooting “senseless.”

“He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” she said. “If there were more people in the world like Greg, things like this wouldn’t happen.

Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas. He also recently was arrested and charged in Washington state for assaulting a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child. Using a bail bondsman, he posted $150,000 — only $15,000 of his own money — and was released from jail last week.

Documents related to the pending charges in Washington state indicate an unstable and volatile personality. In one instance, he is accused of punching a sheriff’s deputy in the face, The Seattle Times reported. In another, he is accused of gathering his wife and young relatives and forcing them to undress, according to a Pierce County sheriff’s report.

“The whole time Clemmons kept saying things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was Jesus,” the report said.

Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were killed while sitting in the shop, and a third was shot dead after standing up. The fourth apparently “gave up a good fight.”

“We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight … that he fought the guy all the way out the door,” Troyer said. “We hope that he hit him.”

An electronic tracking bracelet police believe Clemmons was wearing at the insistence of the bail-bond company was found cut off by police on Sunday, Troyer said. Clemmons is believed to have associates who have helped him evade police in the past, Troyer said.

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after Huckabee commuted a 95-year prison sentence. Huckabee, who was criticized during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for granting many clemencies and commutations, cited Clemmons’ youth. Clemmons later violated his parole, was returned to prison and released in 2004.

On Sunday, Huckabee deflected blame with a statement on his Web site.

“Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State,” he wrote.

There was no indication of any connection between Sunday’s killings and the Halloween night shooting of a Seattle police officer.

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.

The officers killed Sunday had received no threats, sheriff’s officials said.

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

Associated Press Writers Rachel La Corte in Tacoma, George Tibbits and Manuel Valdes in Seattle, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Ark., and Photographers Elaine Thompson in Seattle and Ted S. Warren in Parkland contributed to this report.