Four Police Officers Shot Dead in Washington Coffee House
November 30th, 2009Via: Telegraph:
Four police officers were “executed” in a day-time ambush in a coffee shop next to McChord Air Force Base in Washington.
The officers, three men and a woman, were wearing bullet proof vests and did not even have time to return fire as the killer, armed with a handgun, unleashed a volley of shots and then fled.
The attack immediately raised fears of a repeat of the massacre at Fort Hood military base in Texas, where Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 people on Nov 5.
The gunman burst into the Forza coffee shop, which is on a side street next to the base in Tacoma, Washington, 40 miles south of Seattle.
The victims were working on laptops preparing paperwork ahead of their shifts when the gunman attacked at 8.15 am.
Police said the officers were deliberately targeted and the attack was not a robbery that went wrong.
“This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers,” said Ed Troyer, the Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman.
“There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform.” He said the gunman is believed to have walked in alone but the possibility of an accomplice has not been ruled out.
Police said they believed one of the officers wrestled with the suspect and may have shot him.
Mr Troyer said: “We believe there was a struggle in there and there is a possibility one of the officers may have fired a shot. We hope that he hit him. If he did, then he is injured.”
He appealed for information about anyone who had been seen in the area with a gun wound. The suspect was described as black, in his 20s or 30s and “scruffy”.
Describing the scene at the coffee shop, Mr Troyer said: “It’s carnage out front everywhere. It’s like a bad horror movie. It’s horrible.”
There was also speculation that the attack could be a copycat shooting after another officer, Timothy Brenton, was shot and killed last month while sitting in a car.
Authorities say the man charged with that shooting also firebombed four police vehicles last month as part of a “one-man war” against police.
Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested days after the Seattle shooting and remains in hospital in a stable condition.
Mr Troyer said: “We won’t know if it’s a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved. We don’t even have a suspect ID right now.” Two baristas and several customers were in the coffee shop but were not shot.
Mr Troyer said: “Some are in shock. They are very upset. They are the ones who are going to put together for us how this happened.”
Police later seized a pickup truck parked in a nearby grocery store.
Sad.
So is the case of Amado Diallo, shot 41 times by New York cops while reaching for his wallet.
And so is the following:
ATLANTA — Three former Atlanta police officers who each pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge in connection with the death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid were sentenced Tuesday to federal prison.
Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler received sentences ranging from five years to 10. Kathryn Johnston, 92, was killed by police gunfire during the 2006 raid at her home.
Police used a “no-knock” warrant to enter Johnston’s house to look for drugs. But prosecutors say officers found none and tried to cover up the mistake by planting baggies of marijuana.
U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes on Tuesday sentenced Smith to 10 years in federal prison. She sentenced Junnier to six years and Tesler to five years.
Queue the “increasing ‘domestic terrorism’ worries” rhetoric and reports from on high.
I just read that Maurice Clemmons, the suspect who killed the four cops, had a long criminal history, including a long prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago. What a tangled web we weave…
>>I just read that Maurice Clemmons, … had a long criminal history
I am interested to see how this falls out too. I can’t tell if this is a case of a desperado getting even with the cops, or a desperado getting even with a single cop, or possibly a case of ‘falling down’ syndrome.
I was just in Seattle. On the radio, callers were irrationally saying ‘we should never let criminals out. Cops should stop sitting in coffee shops because obviously, it is open season on police”. I thought the weirdest facts were that he is paranoid and delusional, recently saying he thinks he can fly and Obama is the messiah, and has a dozen security cameras (someone burned his house down with a firework last july), but he is crafty and functional enough to pick the best shooting angle in the store, and they think he was badly shot yet drove himself 30 miles into Seattle to hide afterwards.