According to the Associated Press, the man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot and killed by Seattle police early this morning (Tues.,Dec. 1).
Maurice Clemmons was shot to death in a working-class south Seattle neighborhood after police tracked him down using possible hiding spots supplied by Pierce County investigators, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the county sheriff.
Authorities say Clemmons, 37, killed the four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop Sunday morning in Parkland, a Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle.
Police said they aren’t sure what prompted Clemmons to shoot the officers as they did paperwork on their laptops. Clemmons was described as increasingly erratic in the past few months and had been arrested earlier this year on charges that he punched a sheriff’s deputy in the face.
Authorities said the gunman singled out the Lakewood officers and spared employees and other customers at the coffee shop. He then fled, but was shot in the torso by one of the dying officers.
Killed were Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42.
Troyer told the Tacoma News-Tribune that Clemmons indicated the night before the shooting “that he was going to shoot police and watch the news.”
Authorities in two states were criticized amid revelations that Clemmons was allowed to walk the streets despite a teenage crime spree in Arkansas that landed him an 108-year prison sentence. He was released early after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his sentence.
Huckabee cited Clemmons’ youth in granting the request. But Clemmons quickly reverted to his criminal past, violated his parole and was returned to prison. He was released again in 2004.
Huckabee said on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday night that Clemmons was allowed back on the street because prosecutors failed to file paperwork in time.
Clemmons was charged in Washington state earlier this year with assaulting a police officer and raping a child, and investigators in the sex case said he was motivated by visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the world was on the verge of the apocalypse.
But he was released from jail after posting bail.
Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report.