Lakewood, Washington: Officers Down - Four Police Dead; Suspect Killed During Manhunt

Drama in Blogtime: The Lakewood "Hit"

Starting Sunday morning, a hyperlink recap of Slog's coverage of the Lakewood, Washington slayings of four police officers:

• Anthony Hecht, "Breaking: 4 Police Officers Shot and Killed Near McChord AFB" (Nov. 29, 10.25 AM)

• Dominic Holden, "More Details on the Four Officers Killed This Morning" (11.13 AM)

• Dan Savage, "Seattle Times Has Details on Suspect ...." (8.25 PM)

• Anthony Hecht, "Police Surround Leschi Home in Connection With Lakewood Police Killings" (10.13 PM)

• Eli Sanders, "Locked Down in Leschi" (Nov. 30, 12.11 AM)

• Dominic Holden, "Bloody Gauze and an Abandoned Building at Dearborn and Maynard Streets" (12.04 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Map of the Manhunt" (12.08 PM)

• Jen Graves, "The Curse of Tacoma: A Timeline of Hurt ...." (12.20 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Police Searching for Green 1997 Mazda" (12.38 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "A Blood Trail at Cowen Park" (12.43 PM)

• Dan Savage, "Scruffy While Black" (1.02 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Maurice Clemmons on Twitter: Is This Real?" (1.03 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "CPS Substantiated Child Sexual Abuse Complaint Against Clemmons in October" (1.35 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Calm Down, People—Leave the Body Armor at Home" (1.50 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "In Twitter-Related Manhunt News" (2.21 PM)

• Eli Sanders, "Maurice Clemmons Wanted to Plead Insanity—Even After Western State Found Him 'Competent'" (2.23 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Brenton Family Calls Cop Killer a 'Monster'" (2.50 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Police Setting Up 'Containment' at 13th and Lander" (3.24 PM)

• Dan Savage, "While We're All On The Lookout For Black Guys With Moles ..." (3.27 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Mike Huckabee Primarily to Blame" (4.10 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Clemmons's Business License" (4.32 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "SWAT Team Surrounds House in Renton" (5.31 PM)

• Dan Savage, "Weird" (5.50 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Family May Be Trying to Help Suspect Avoid Capture" (5.54 PM)

• Eli Sanders, "About That Maurice Clemmons Twitter Feed ...." (5.55 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "FOX News Lets Huckabee Off the Hook for Releasing Clemmons" (6.24 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "SWAT Team in Renton Arrests Suspect's Relative" (6.50 PM)

• Eli Sanders, "O'Reilly's Dishonesty" (6.55 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Clemmons not in Renton House" (7.45 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "I feel sorry for every husky black male with a mole on his face" (11.16 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Police Round Up Suspect's Relatives" (11.25 PM)

• Dominic Holden, "Maurice Clemmons Killed by Police" (Dec. 1, 3.45 AM)

• Dominic Holden, "Police Briefing: How a Cop Killed Clemmons" (6.20 AM)

• Dan Savage, "Makes You Wonder How Many More Pardon Eruptions Huckabee Is Going To Have" (7.56 AM)

• David Schmader, "The Morning News" (8.08 AM)

• Dan Savage, "Misreading a Headline" (8.41 AM)​

There are, of course, more stories to come, but this appears to be the drama from Sunday morning to the present.

The dead:

• Officer Greg Richards: 42, married, father of three.

• Officer Tina Griswold: 40, married, mother of two.

• Officer Ronald Owens: 37, single father of one.

• Sgt. Mark Renninger: 39, married, father of three.​

The Lakewood Police Department is all of five years old. According to various news reports, at the time of the shooting, 95% of its original hired force was still intact. As the city of Lakewood, its police department, and the families and friends of the slain come to terms with the fact and magnitude of what has just happened, the region nervously wonders if maybe we aren't seeing the emergence of a new trend in twenty-first century anti-government paranoia. The Lakewood hit is the second targeted killing of police officers in the Puget Sound region in a month. Officer Timothy Brenton, 39, married with two children, was gunned down on Halloween at 29th and Yesler in Seattle.

I don't know if it is appropriate to raise a pipe to the fallen, but I do so anyway. These were not rogue cops killed in the line of corruption, but rather police officers assassinated by a fiend with a grudge. The region mourns, and struggles to come to terms with a bloody, awful month.

 

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Dead man kills no more

This Huckabee fella has a terrible bad luck and probably can't run for president anymore:

"In 2000, Huckabee commuted Maurice Clemmons' 108-year sentence for several felonies after Clemmons and a pastor said he had found religion and turned his life around. Now Clemmons is suspected of slaying the four officers in a coffee shop near Tacoma. "

Probably should have posted under Politics or Religion....

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/1...-chances-look-slim-to-none-after-police-slay/

Anyhow, the point I was making is obvious, pretty much any sentence can be commuted to a lesser sentence (except when we actually execute the guy, thus dead man CAN"T kill anymore), and there is NO guarantee the fellow won't do some very bad deeds, in deed...

Mod Note: This is a topic post from a separate discussion merged into the present thread.

 

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Probably true, if the Republicans aren't hypocrites. I don't have a problem with it, no one could predict his behavior.

 

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"When he ran in 2008, Huckabee received much attention for having publicly supported and privately urged the release of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond. Dumond won parole in 1999, three years after Huckabee became governor and discussed the case at a private meeting with the parole board. Dumond then moved to Missouri, was charged with rape and murder, and died in prison before trial. "

 

ugghh they were looking for him in my neighborhood....Good riddance.

 

By the way, my post was only using this recent case as an example, and wasn't really about this case particulary. Anyhow, the end of the story:

"Clemmons was spotted about 2:45 a.m. Tuesday when a seven-year veteran of the Seattle force on routine patrol noticed a car idling along the side of the road in Seattle's Rainier Valley area, its hood up. When he stopped to check, the officer discovered that the car had been reported stolen a couple of hours earlier.

The officer then detected movement behind him. "He recognized the person who was approaching him to be looking . . . just like the person that has been broadcast as the possible suspect in the tragic homicide in Lakewood," Seattle Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel said.

The officer ordered Clemmons to stop and show his hands. Instead, Clemmons began running around the disabled vehicle and the officer fired several rounds at him, killing him.

"It was all over in 15 seconds," Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said."

End of story: Instead of keeping him on death row for 15 years, he was killed in less than 15 seconds. Justice at its best....

 

cops put themselves above everyone else. I pity the dead. And I pity the normal people who get to live through "Seattle WTO treatment" over and over again. police and Seattle dont mix well.

 

Dragon, don't get offtopic. Please argue against the "dead man do no more harm" argument.

Oh wait, there isn't any such an argument....