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Police still searching for suspected cop killer


Seattle police are spending the morning chasing reports of suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons after the house they had surrounded overnight turned up empty.



By Seattle Times staff


CLIFF DESPEAUX / THE SEATTLE TIMES

A trailer believed to be the hiding place for Maurice Clemmons is searched by police after a standoff that lasted several hours early Monday morning, Nov. 30, 2009, in Seattle. The search continues for the suspect in Sunday's killing of four Lakewood Police officers in the house seen in the background.

Seattle police are spending the morning chasing reports of suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons after the house they had surrounded overnight turned up empty.

About 7 a.m. today, a Seattle SWAT team searched a Leschi house it had surrounded since late Sunday, but found no sign of Clemmons.

A murder warrant has been issued for Clemmons, the man suspected of killing four Lakewood police officers Sunday in a Parkland coffee shop, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

Troyer said the search of the Leschi house finished shortly after 7 a.m. Officers searched with a robot before SWAT officers moved in. Seattle police said they found evidence that Clemmons had been at the house.

Less than an hour later, police swarmed to the University of Washington after someone reported seeing Clemmons getting off a Metro bus at the campus. That search led officers near the UW Medical Center and apparently into a classroom, but Clemmons wasn't there.

About 10 a.m., officers raced to Jose Rizal Park in Beacon Hill after someone reported seeing Clemmons there. By 10:30, officers had walked the park with police dogs and were confident Clemmons wasn't there, either.

"We're responding to citizen calls." Sgt. Don Smith said.

There is a $125,000 reward for information leading to Clemmons' capture.

Clemmons was shot and perhaps seriously wounded by one of the slain officers Sunday morning, Troyer said.

"He has suffered a gunshot wound," Troyer said at a media briefing held just before 3 a.m.

Police know that Clemmons was wounded because they have detained other people — Troyer wouldn't say how many — who helped Clemmons after the shootings.

At the briefing, Troyer said police now consider Clemmons a suspect, rather than merely a "person of interest." Troyer told the Tacoma News-Tribune that Clemmons "made comments the night before to people that he was going to shoot police and watch the news."

Police don't know the severity of Clemmons' wound, and Troyer said he may already be dead.

Investigators have no indication that Clemmons had a motive aimed specifically at any of the particular officers who were gunned down, Troyer said.

"He was upset about being incarcerated," Troyer said. "He was just targeting cops."

A trailer on the property where police first thought Clemmons was hiding was empty when officers entered it early this morning.

A short time earlier, they had issued an ultimatum for anyone inside the trailer to come out, but got no response.

That was followed by a series of flash-bangs, distraction devices which can temporarily blind a suspect. Discharges of what appeared to be tear gas followed.

SWAT teams and police negotiators had surrounded the house at East Yesler Way and 32nd Avenue South earlier in the day based on tips given to police.

Police responded to the home around 8:44 p.m. Sunday. A woman who was leaving the home was stopped by officers and told them Clemmons was on the property and bleeding.

The woman told police that someone had dropped Clemmons off at his aunt's home, on East Superior Street.

Clemmons' sister, Latanya Clemmons, said Sunday night she was near her aunt's house waiting to see what happens. She also said she and her cousin, Cicely, were trying to call their aunt and Maurice in the house but they were getting no answer.

Police told residents to stay inside and keep their doors locked.

One Leschi resident couldn't get back to his home Sunday night. Bo Peck, 52, and his wife just moved from Montlake to a home on East Superior Street this weekend, and he had gone back to get his last load from his old house. When he tried to get back to his new house, he found police had closed off all routes along Lake Washington Boulevard and Alder Street.

"Everything is blocked down there," Peck said. His daughter is supposed to return to Western Washington University tomorrow.

"My wife and daughter are alone down there, they're a little freaked out," Peck said.

Charles and Heidi Markham live on East Superior Street. They arrived back in Seattle at about 1 a.m. today, returning from a trip to British Columbia. But police stopped them several blocks from their home.

"They told us it's blocked off and nobody can get in there," Charles Markham said. "They told us just to wait awhile."

Heidi Markham said: "It's a nice neighborhood. That's why this is kind of strange."

The couple has lived in the neighborhood for 42 years. They said they weren't worried, and that it seemed like police had the situation under control.

The series of events leading up to the house in Leschi began more than 16 hours earlier at an upscale coffee shop in Parkland, Pierce County, a hangout for officers that became the scene of the deadliest attack on law enforcement in state history.

Four officers were shot and killed at 8:15 a.m. as they worked on their laptops at Forza Coffee Company in Parkland. The first two officers were "flat-out executed," while the third tried to stop the gunman and the fourth fired at him, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

Those killed were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Gregory Richards, 42.

Lakewood Police Chief Bret Farrar has scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference today to discuss the officers and the shooting. A community prayer service is planned for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Lakewood YMCA.

Clemmons has a long criminal record in Arkansas and Washington. He was released from custody in Pierce County just a week ago, and was facing a charge of raping a child. Family members described him as being in a state of mental deterioration. Last spring, he was also accused of punching a sheriff's deputy in the face.

Sunday's shootings came as officers from across the state were still coming to terms with last month's ambush-slaying of Seattle police Officer Timothy Brenton. The two incidents do not appear related, police said.

The coffee shop, in a strip mall across the street from McChord Air Force Base, is favored by officers from several nearby jurisdictions.

Troyer said the scruffy-looking gunman entered the shop, walked past the officers and three or four other customers, and approached the counter.

A young barista asked the man if she could help him, according to Humberto Navarrete, 51, who lives nearby and later spoke to the barista. The man stared at the barista without saying a word and then opened his coat, revealing a handgun, Navarrete said.

The barista and another female barista on duty ran out the back, according to Navarrete. The gunman turned and started shooting at the officers, he said, quoting the women.

"This was a targeted, selective ambush," Troyer said.

The officers, who made up one patrol unit, were regulars at the coffee shop. They were wearing bulletproof vests and were preparing to start their day shift, Troyer said.

The first two officers apparently had no time to react. The third officer stood up and tried to go for the gunman before being shot, Troyer said. The fourth officer struggled with the gunman, wrestled him out the door and managed to fire off some shots before he, too, was killed, Troyer said.

It's not clear if the gunman was injured by gunshots.
"It's carnage out front everywhere," Troyer said, describing the front of the coffee shop. "It's like a bad horror movie, it's horrible."

Navarrete, a financial manager who lives a block from the coffee shop, said he was in a nearby AM-PM minimart Sunday morning when the two baristas from the coffee shop ran into the store crying and upset.

Brad Carpenter, CEO of Forza Coffee, met with the two young baristas after they were interviewed by police and said they were shaken up.

The slain officers were "well-known to our staff," said Carpenter, a retired police officer from Oakland, Calif., and Gig Harbor.

"It's supposed to be a safe haven for everybody," he said of the coffee shop.
When the 911 calls started coming in, officers from Lakewood, Tacoma and other jurisdictions raced to the area.

"I have never seen this many scramble to a particular spot, ever," said David Gabrielson, 27, who works as clerk at a gas station near the coffee shop.

An apparent hoax came when a man called 911, claiming to be the shooter. Police took the man into custody at a Parkland house, but he was not linked to the crime, Troyer said.

A second likely hoax came after a Tacoma man called his girlfriend and some other people and falsely claimed responsibility for the shooting, Troyer said. The man has since been arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police investigation.

That hoax sparked the search of vehicles parked outside Evergreen Self Storage, a facility near the shooting scene. The Pierce County bomb squad was dispatched to the storage facility.

Authorities remained on edge all day. At one point, Troyer, who was carrying an assault rifle, told members of the media, "this is kind of a hot area, so you're kind of on your own."

Heavily armed police on Sunday surrounded the Tacoma home of Clemmons' wife, not far from the shooting scene. It didn't appear anyone was home. Later Sunday night they served a search warrant at the home.

Troyer said police found a GPS ankle bracelet during a search of a house where Clemmons was believed to have been staying. Clemmons was required to wear an ankle bracelet under terms of his recent release.

Troyer said if the gunman was shot, he could be traveling some distance to get care. Troyer suggested the man may try to visit a medical facility and claim he had suffered an accidental gunshot wound.

The shootings rank as the worst attack on law enforcement in state history. Three Seattle police were shot and killed by a gunman in January 1921.

Carpenter, the Forza CEO, said donation boxes to help the families of the slain officers will be in place today at all 22 Forza stores in Washington and Colorado, and that information would be placed on the company Web site about making contributions.

Several hundred mourners gathered at Champions Centre, a church in Tacoma, for a memorial service for the officers Sunday night. And a procession of vehicles accompanied two vehicles that transported the bodies from Parkland to the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office in Tacoma.

Seattle Times staff reporters Sara Jean Green, Mike Carter, Steve Miletich, Jonathan Martin, Nick Perry, Jennifer Sullivan and Christine Clarridge and news researchers Miyoko Wolf and Gene Balk contributed to this report.

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