4 Police Officers Shot Dead At Coffee Shop

[katie_girl09]

You're a cop?

Majic Walrus is a cop too. But he's disappeared. Which is a good thing because he'd be on this thread FOR-EVER!

 

[Hotwire]

My position is Special Agent actually. But yes, I am a law enforcement officer.

Well, thank you for the work you do. I'm surprised you're not tearing into this guy more.

 

[mrvlknight21]

Majic Walrus is a cop too. But he's disappeared. Which is a good thing because he'd be on this thread FOR-EVER!

Yeah, he was the one I was referencing as already posted in this thread.

 

[mrvlknight21]

Well, thank you for the work you do. I'm surprised you're not tearing into this guy more.

Thank you for saying that.
You are exactly the 2nd person to say such a thing without reason (like me working a case where your family was a victim for example).
Im not tearing into him because I really want him to see and understand and putting him down/yelling/etc will not accomplish that.

 

[C. Lee]

I was wondering if there were any cops on this board, but this is the next best thing.

My father, brother in law, uncle, and a half dozen friends were or are cops.

 

[huskerwebhead]

It's great that the ones you know are straight arrows. But I just want to say that harassment by the police does occur, and that I suspect it happens a bit more than people think it does. That's all.

No question in my mind that it does happen. It's naive for anyone to assume otherwise. My comment was directed at his assumption that (all/most) the police look for opportunities to harass people. They, just like anyone else working a job, are just as content to avoid additional work if possible. Not make more just for the heck of it. This is from the 11 people I know personally and the roughly dozen or so I've talked with through them or during ride-alongs. Versus his "countless" unknown number.

 

[Hotwire]

Thank you for saying that.
You are exactly the 2nd person to say such a thing without reason (like me working a case where your family was a victim for example).
Im not tearing into him because I really want him to see and understand and putting him down/yelling/etc will not accomplish that.

Understandable.

 

[Shifty]

ANYWAY... The police now have a person of interest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_officers_shot

Fine job by Gov.Mike Huckabee to commute that sentence... How does a guy who is sentenced 95 years for his crimes and only do 10?

According to ABC News, Huckabee granted pardons and commutations to approximately 12 convicted murderers.

A study by the Arkansas Leader showed that between 1996 and 2004, Huckabee helped to free more Arkansas prisoners than were freed from all of Arkansas' six neighboring states--combined.

In 2004, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concluded that "9 percent of the prisoners who benefited from Huckabee's clemencies ended up in prison again."

 

[mrvlknight21]

Fine job by Gov.Mike Huckabee to commute that sentence... How does a guy who is sentenced 95 years for his crimes and only do 10?

Here in Georgia a LIFE sentence is a minimum of 7 years...and I have seen one person get out after 7 years and re-offend.

 

[danoyse]

I don't think anyone would debate that there are crooked cops out there, just nowhere near the number that A&W seems to think there are.

And this thread started regarding a story in the news today that 4 cops were gunned down in a coffee shop. We don't know the reasons behind it, but to have someone come in and decide they're not worthy of sympathy because of bad experience with other cops is pretty sad.

 

[huskerwebhead]

Swell. When does California break off from the rest of the US so we can start using it as a huge prison island?

 

[mrvlknight21]

And this thread started regarding a story in the news today that 4 cops were gunned down in a coffee shop. We don't know the reasons behind it, but to have someone come in and decide they're not worthy of sympathy because of bad experience with other cops is pretty sad.

Agreed.

 

[Hotwire]

And this thread started regarding a story in the news today that 4 cops were gunned down in a coffee shop. We don't know the reasons behind it, but to have someone come in and decide they're not worthy of sympathy because of bad experience with other cops is pretty sad.

Yes it is.

 

[C. Lee]

Swell. When does California break off from the rest of the US so we can start using it as a huge prison island?

Geeze man....you don't send them to California.....northern Alaska is better.

 

[bgates87]

Send all of the prisoners to Alaska secretly and keep them in hidden underground prisons, then sell it to Canada.

 

[RKO]

No thanks, Canada breeds their own.

 

[Mike_D202]

My prayers go out to the families of the slain officers (even if some of you think they deserve it for some kind of corruption..or whatever).

A&W, I think I know what your problem is with law enforcement/people with power, just from judging how you were acting in this thread.

You got busted with illegal drugs and was punished for it. That probably made you a target for questioning when you had a "run-in" with law enforcement afterwards. Judging from how you were acting with the mods here, you seem to be argumentative and defensive (very much so considering you wrote 3 paragraph responses to 1 word sentences), and makes me think that you do the same with cops. When a cop questions you or talks to you, don't get argumentative and defensive right away, that just makes you look like your hiding something and shows little respect to the cop (which will stress him/her out a little when he/she is just doing the job, and makes them defensive themselves when they don't know how you'll act towards them from then on out). Just relax and calm down.

 

[Hound55]

Majic Walrus is a cop too. But he's disappeared. Which is a good thing because he'd be on this thread FOR-EVER!

And I work for SAPOL (South Australian Police Dept.) but I'm not a sworn officer.

And the only way I could prevent myself getting banned in this thread was to just not take him seriously... which was more difficult than it sounds...

 

[Hotwire]

Update...

SEATTLE – A suspect in the slaying of four police officers who were gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was surrounded by police at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, authorities said.
Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers, explosions and even a robot to try to prod him from hiding. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood, about 30 miles from the original crime scene.
"We have determined that in fact he has been shot," said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff. "He may be deceased from his gunshot wound."
Clemmons has a long criminal history, including a long prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago and a recent arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer in Washington.
He went to a coffee house on Sunday morning and opened fire on the Lakewood officers, killing Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42, as they caught up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts. He fled but authorities believe he might have been wounded by one of his victims.
"We don't know if he's still alive. If he isn't, it's because he succumbed to the wound he received yesterday when he was in the struggle with the police officer that managed to get a shot fired at him before he was killed," Troyer said on the "Early Show" on CBS.
Police surrounded the house late Sunday, and a negotiator used a loudspeaker early Monday to call him out 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, saying: "This is one of the toughest decisions you'll make in your life, but you need to man up."
By 3 a.m. Pacific time, the loudspeakers and explosions had fallen silent. Seattle Police spokesman Jeff Kappel said Clemmons has never responded. It's not clear whose house it is.
Clemmons is believed to have been in the area of the coffee shop around the time of the shooting, but 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 Sunday. Court documents indicate that Clemmons is delusional and mentally unstable.
"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."
Officer 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 was also recently charged in Washington state with 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 a 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.
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 issued this 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."
It was the second deadly ambush of police in the Seattle area in recent weeks, but the two cases aren't related.
Authorities say a man killed a Seattle police officer on Halloween night and 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.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Parkland, Rachel La Corte in Tacoma, George Tibbits in Seattle, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Ark., and photographers Elaine Thompson in Seattle and Ted S. Warren in Parkland.

Original Atricle

 

[Majic Walrus]

I think we mostly got hostile because you belittled the death of four police officers. You may think that most, if not all, cops are corrupt, power crazy a-holes, but you would be wrong. I've encountered enough cops to know this for myself. I find most cops have got better things to do than harass the general public. I've dealt with quite a few cops who are doing the job because they feel they can make a difference. Many of them have families. Imagine how you would feel if your father was killed and someone said that he was probably a corrupt person anyway and "probably did something inappropriate to set someone off."

You disrespecting their memory by assuming that they were corrupt is sickening, and deplorable. While I don't doubt you've have some run-ins with the law where you got the shaft, I think it is grossly unfair to assume that the four cops in the story were corrupt.

I'm sort of sorry I missed this thread last night. It looked hella fun.

I just want say thanks to the people in this thread like Mal'Akai who didn't take ********. Almost my my little heart go flutter.

 

[Majic Walrus]

Majic Walrus is a cop too. But he's disappeared. Which is a good thing because he'd be on this thread FOR-EVER!

*ahem* You know that I'm a Detective now.

 

[Hotwire]

I'm sort of sorry I missed this thread last night. It looked hella fun.

I just want say thanks to the people in this thread like Mal'Akai who didn't take ********. Almost my my little heart go flutter.

No problem.

 

[katie_girl09]

*ahem* You know that I'm a Detective now.

Ah, same diff. You're still a flatfoot.

 

[chamber-music]

Geeze man....you don't send them to California.....northern Alaska is better.

Sarah Palin can can run the prison or is giving her an army of the worst criminals in the country a bad idea?

 

[chamber-music]

*ahem* You know that I'm a Detective now.

Just like Batman