HUNT TURNS TO FAMILY,FRIENDS OF SUSPECT

After massive search, Clemmonsis killed by lone patrolman

He went free as state pleadedfor warrant from Arkansas

E L L E N M . B A N N E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

Kelly Richards, widow of slain Lakewood police Officer Gregory Richards, center, and their daughter Jami-Mae, center right, are comforted at acourt hearing for three people accused of helping Maurice Clemmons. Behind Kelly is her brother-in-law, Tacoma Police Officer Steve Thornton.

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BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERGAND HELENE COOPERThe New York Times

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Presi-dent Obama announcedTuesday that he would speed30,000 additional troops toAfghanistan, but he vowed tostart bringing U.S. forceshome in the middle of 2011.

Saying he could “bring thiswar to a successful conclu-sion,” Obama set out a strate-gy that would seek to reverseTaliban gains, protect the Af-ghan people from attacks,provide time for Afghanistanto build its military capacityand a more effective govern-ment and increase pressureon al-Qaida in Pakistan.

“I seefirsthandthe terribleravages ofwar,” Oba-ma told4,000 ca-dets, in asomberspeech atthe U.S.MilitaryAcademy.“If I did notthink thatthe security of the UnitedStates and the safety of theAmerican people were atstake in Afghanistan, I wouldgladly order every single oneof our troops home tomor-row.”

The speech, the culmina-tion of a three-month review,could well prove the mostconsequential of Obama’spresidency. He sought toconvince an increasinglyskeptical nation that the Tali-ban’s resurgence in Afghani-stan and the continued exis-tence of al-Qaida in Pakistanwere direct threats to U.S. se-curity, and that he couldachieve seemingly contradic-tory goals of scaling up U.S.involvement in the war evenas he seeks to bring it respon-sibly to a close.

Obama called on foreignallies to step up their com-mitment, declaring, “This isnot just America’s war.”

He also delivered a point-

Obama outlines escalationand exit

AFGHANISTAN WAR

President to add30,000 troops but

begin pullout in 2011

See > AFGHANISTAN, A3

President seeks tomake time an allyin war > Close-up A3

PresidentObamaspeaks on Af-ghan war.

BY STEVE MILETICH AND JACK BROOMSeattle Times staff reporters

What began as a routine check ofa stolen car early Tuesday morningbecame, in a matter of minutes, amomentous piece of police work.

When it was over, MauriceClemmons, the 37-year-old sus-pect in the slaying of four Lake-wood police officers, was dead,shot by a Seattle police officer whohad been doing paperwork on thestolen car when he suddenly en-countered Clemmons.

The officer, identified by a law-enforcement source as Benjamin L.Kelly, a South Precinct patrolmanwho joined the department lessthan five years ago, emerged unin-

jured — and fortunate to be alive,according to police officials.

Clemmons, an ex-convict facinga potential prison term on child-rape and assault charges, wasarmed with a handgun taken fromone of the Lakewood officers, po-lice said.

The confrontation betweenClemmons and Kelly, which oc-curred about 2:45 a.m. in the 4400block of South Kenyon Street inSouth Seattle, broke the quiet of aresidential neighborhood and end-ed a two-day manhunt for Clem-mons.

During that time, SWAT teamshad gone from house to houselooking for Clemmons, but in the

C L I F F D E S P E A U X / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

Officers investigate near the stolen car (with hood raised) at the sceneof the shooting in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street in Seattle.

BY MAUREEN O’HAGAN, SUSAN KELLEHER AND CHRISTINE CLARRIDGESeattle Times staff reporters

He spent time in prison for robbery, burglaryand firearms possession. He claimed to be theMessiah, threatened violence and, as his fam-ily cried, demanded they all strip. He was fac-ing charges of rape.

And yet even as Maurice Clemmons an-nounced he had gunned down police officersin a Pierce County coffeehouse Sunday, a net-work of friends and family stood by him, help-ing him hide from a massive manhunt that hadhundreds of officers scouring two counties, ac-cording to charging documents.

Tuesday, two men were charged with ren-dering criminal assistance for allegedly help-

Loyal networkbandaged, hid,drove suspect

BY JONATHAN MARTIN, JIM BRUNNER ANDKEN ARMSTRONGSeattle Times staff reporters

When Maurice Clemmons, theman suspected of killing four Lake-wood police officers, walked freefrom a Pierce County jail lastweek, it wasn’t for lack of effort onthe part of Washington officials tokeep him behind bars.

Documents released Tuesdayshow that a wide variety of stateand local officials — everyonefrom prosecutors to sheriff’s depu-ties to corrections officers —viewed Clemmons as a dangerousman, and wanted desperately tokeep him in custody.

But Washington officials en-countered resistance from an un-

likely source — their correctionalcolleagues in Arkansas. The acri-mony has since become so intense,according to Pierce County sher-iff’s spokesman Ed Troyer, that ifthe two states were adjacent a“border war” would break out.

The dispute now centers onwhether a warrant issued by Ar-kansas in October would have al-lowed Washington authorities toprevent Clemmons’ release fromthe Pierce County Jail six days be-fore the shootings occurred. Ar-kansas says yes. Washington saysno.

Clemmons, 37, was accused ofkilling the four police officers Sun-day. On Tuesday, a Seattle policeofficer encountered and killed

E-MAIL: ‘HOPEFULLY (HE) WILL NOT GET OUT ON BAIL’

WEB EXTRA For more photos, police-dispatch audio, and video from the shooting scene, see seattletimes.com

See > E-MAILS, A6

See > CAR, A5See > NETWORK, A5

INSIDE‘He was aterror’:

Clemmons’uncle

describes amental

tailspin > A4

Tributesgrow:

Mourners payrespects > A6

Jerry Large:It’s not aboutskin color > A6

DannyWestneat:The blame

game isuseless > B1

Officer finds car —then Clemmons

A4 News WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009 1 ROP

4 FALLEN OFFICERS

P H O T O S B Y E L L E N M . B A N N E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

A procession of cars Tuesdaymorning heads south downPacific Avenue in Tacoma to-ward Lakewood, led by am-bulances containing the bod-ies of the four slain policeofficers. The four were trans-ported from the Pierce Coun-ty Medical Examiner’s Officeto the Mountain View Funer-al Home. Lakewood police,Fire Honor Guard and medicunits and the Metro CityHonor Guard accompaniedthe slain officers.

AT LEFT: Tacoma police offi-cers salute as the processionpasses down Pacific Avenue.

Processionhonorsofficers

BY MIKE CARTERSeattle Times staff reporter

MARIANNA, Ark. – An uncle ofMaurice Clemmons says his neph-ew had been in a mental tailspinsince spring and was withdrawnand “talking crazy about God”when they last saw each other inWashington state.

Ray Clemmons, 39, a lieutenantin the Arkansas Department of Cor-rections and shift commander in amaximum-security unit, said hisnephew was reclusive and with-drawn.

That was a far cry from the hus-tler who wanted what he had beendenied during years of prison andan impoverished childhood in ruralArkansas and the crime-riddenprojects of Little Rock.

“Maurice was all about getting,all about having. He was all aboutmoney,” Clemmons said. “Then,suddenly, he was all about God.”

Maurice Clemmons, 37, was shotto death by police early Tuesday inSouth Seattle, ending an intense,two-day manhunt after four Lake-wood police officers were shot todeath at a coffee shop Sunday.

Ray Clemmons said his nephew“was fine” when he visited his uncleand grandmother in Marianna lastspring.

But when Ray Clemmons and hisfamily later visited his nephew andhis wife in their Tacoma home —apparently just before MauriceClemmons was to be jailed — theman he’d grown up with was hardlyrecognizable.

“He stayed off to himself. He wastalking about religion and God,”Ray Clemmons said.

Ray Clemmons expressed re-morse for the families of the slainofficers.

“This is a bitter pill to swallow,”he said. “I’m in law enforcementmyself. Maurice took away a lot.These families lost everything.

“My family has to live with this,and now some of them are being

rounded up. There are a lot of con-sequences.”

He said he believes two thingscontributed to his nephew’s killingspree.

One involves a bizarre reportfrom Seattle family members thatMaurice Clemmons may have be-lieved he’d been cursed by a “devilworshipper.” Clemmons supposed-ly let that man live on a mobilehome on his Tacoma property.

Ray Clemmons said his nephewhad gone to the mobile home afterreports of a ruckus.

“What I heard was this guy wastearing up the place. There was afight, and his guy is supposedly

chanting things and saying thesethings to Maurice.”

“It did something to him,” RayClemmons said. “After that, he wasa terror.”

The other contributing factor,Ray Clemmons said, was his neph-ew’s jailing this summer.

Maurice Clemmons was arrestedin May on seven counts of assaultand malicious mischief after a dis-turbance during which he allegedlypunched a Pierce County sheriff’sdeputy.

Two days later, he allegedly gath-ered his wife and younger relativesand forced them to undress, whilepreaching that he was Jesus and

that the world was going to end. An investigation into that inci-

dent led to a second-degree felonycharge of child rape in July. Clem-mons was in and out of jail throughthe summer and fall, before hisNov. 23 release after posting bond.

“He was bitter,” Ray Clemmonssaid. “He felt like he’d been mis-treated. He did not like police. And

he wasn’t going to go back toprison.”

The men were close in age andgrew up together in Marianna, 85miles east of Little Rock near theMississippi border. The tiny town isdilapidated; most buildings on theblock-long Main Street have peel-ing paint and boarded windows.

Maurice Clemmons lived in a mo-bile home with his mother and anumber of half-siblings. Manyaunts, uncles and cousins lived intar-paper shacks and tiny clapboardhouses. The porch door of hisgrandmother’s house — screenripped and hanging crooked — istied shut with a shoestring.

“We were poor, but back then,there wasn’t the crime,” Ray Clem-mons said. “We spent our days run-ning through the woods, swingingon vines. Doing what kids do.”

In the mid-1980s, with workhard to find, Ray and MauriceClemmons moved with their fam-ilies to the East End Housing Proj-ect in Little Rock — just as the firstwaves of the crack-cocaine epi-demic washed over the city.

“That was when all the friendsstarted killing each other overmoney,” Ray Clemmons said.

He said he went to school, therecreational center and home everynight. In 1986, he and his familymoved back to Marianna. “It wasjust too dangerous,” he said.

Maurice Clemmons stayed in Lit-tle Rock. His father, who workedfor Chrysler, died in 1987. Afterthat, Maurice Clemmons “got intotrouble,” his uncle said.

Maurice Clemmons was convict-ed of burglary, robbery and othercharges in 1989 and 1990, receiv-ing sentences of more than 100years. Then-Gov. Mike Huckabeecommuted the sentence in 2000, af-ter 11 years in prison. In 2001,Clemmons was returned to prisonin Arkansas for nearly three years.

“I think all of this just piled up,”Ray Clemmons said. “The rapecharge was going to cost him hiswife. He was looking at going toprison again, maybe for life. He gottaken to the brink, and hesnapped.”

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 ormcarter@seattletimes.com

Uncle: ‘He was all about money ...suddenly, he was all about God’

S T A T O N B R E I D E N T H A L / A R K A N S A S D E M O C R A T - G A Z E T T E

Ray Clemmons, a corrections official, shown in his Marianna, Ark., home, was close to his nephew MauriceClemmons. “This is a bitter pill to swallow. ... Maurice took away a lot. These families lost everything.”

CLEMMONS’ MENTAL STATE

Recent jailing, perceivedcurse sent suspect into

tailspin, close relative says

“He was bitter. He felt like

he’d been mistreated. He did not

like police. And he wasn’t going to

go back to prison.”

RAY CLEMMONSOn his nephew Maurice Clemmons

2 ROP WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009 News A5

4 FALLEN OFFICERS

private guy and he doesn’t want tosay anything.”

But Laffend said Kelly is a “reallyawesome person and a nice guy.”

Kelly has said he wants the focusto remain on the slain Lakewoodofficers, a source said.

A confrontationKelly was on patrol when he saw

a silver 1990 Acura Integra with itshood up, the engine running andnobody inside.

Seattle Assistant Chief Jim Pu-gel, without identifying Kelly, saidthe officer ran the license plate anddetermined the car was stolen.

It had been reported stolen fromthe 4800 block of South ChicagoStreet, only a few blocks away,about two hours earlier.

As the officer sat in his patrol carwriting a report on the stolen car,he noticed a man approaching thedriver’s side of the patrol car frombehind, the department said.

The officer got out of his car andimmediately recognized Clem-mons, police said.

“He ordered the person to stop.He ordered the person to show hishands. That person would notshow his hands, and also began torun away counterclockwisearound the vehicle,” Pugel said.

The officer again told Clemmonsto stop, and he didn’t comply, Pu-gel said.

As the officer drew his gun,Clemmons “reached into his waistarea and moved,” the departmentsaid in a written statement.

The officer then fired severalshots at Clemmons, striking him atleast twice, the statement said.

Clemmons collapsed near some

end, it came down to the actions ofa single officer.

Police officials said Clemmonswas shot at least twice after the of-ficer recognized him and Clem-mons refused commands to stop.

Clemmons also had an olderwound to his abdomen, believed tobe the result of a gunshot fired byone of the Lakewood officers whowere killed Sunday.

Ed Troyer, spokesman for thePierce County Sheriff’s Office, theagency investigating the slayingsof the Lakewood officers, said hewas surprised Clemmons survivedthat wound.

Seattle police, in a written state-ment that didn’t identify Kelly byname, said the officer joined thedepartment just over 41⁄2 years ago.The statement said the officer hasprior law-enforcement experienceand is a military veteran.

Kelly grew up in New Jersey,said Rachel Laffend of New Jersey,whose brother is married to Kelly’ssister.

Contacted by telephone, she im-mediately knew the reason, say-ing, “I know. I know. We’ve beenwatching.”

Laffend said Kelly had askedfamily members not to talk to thenews media “because he is sort of a

bushes on the north side of thestreet, the statement said. He waspronounced dead at the scene.

The man was identified as Clem-mons based on his description andother information, Pugel said.

A handgun was found in a frontpocket of a sweat shirt Clemmonswas wearing, police said. A checkof the serial number showed thegun belonged to one of the Lake-wood police officers, Pugel said.

Troyer, the Pierce County sher-iff’s spokesman, did not identifywhose gun was taken.

Clemmons, who allegedly washelped by relatives and friendswhile eluding police, apparentlyhad no tie to residents on the blockwhere he was killed, Pugel said.

A balky vehicleLakewood Police Chief Bret Far-

rar arrived at the scene a few hoursafter Tuesday’s shooting, to ex-press relief and appreciation.

“I just want to thank all mybrothers and sisters in law enforce-ment,” he said. “I just can’t sayenough about what they’ve done inthe last few days.

“What went through my mindmostly was ... we can close thepage on this and we can get ourpeople together and start the heal-ing process,” Farrar said.

Harvey Lagon reported the cartheft about 12:45 a.m. Tuesdayfrom his residence about fiveblocks from the shooting scene. La-gon was watching television whenhe heard a car start up and heardsomeone revving the engine.

“I looked out the window and itwas my car,” he said.

“I’m the one who called the

cops,” he said. “I was going to goafter him. It’s a good thing Ididn’t.”

The Integra is owned by his fa-ther, Rodolfo Lagon.

In the end, the car’s problems —Harvey Lagon noted that it some-times dies — helped police.

“It’s not a very reliable car,” hesaid. “We only use it for shorttrips.”Seattle Times reporters Jennifer Sullivan,

Mark Rahner, Sara Jean Green, MikeCarter and Mike Lindblom and news

researchers Miyoko Wolf and Gene Balkcontributed to this story.

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 orsmiletich@seattletimes.com

C L I F F D E S P E A U X / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

Officers set up survey tripods at the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street in South Seattle, where Maurice Clemmons was killed early Tuesday.

< CarFROM A1

OFFICER IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED SUSPECT

Man ‘reached into hiswaist area and moved’

S. CHICAGO ST.S. CHICAGO ST.

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MARK NOWLIN / THE SEATTLE TIMESMARK NOWLIN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Sources: ESRI, TeleAtlas

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Where the suspect was killed

12

S. CHICAGO ST.

1. A 1990 Acura Integra is stolen. The owner reports it to police.

2. An officer sees the car and determines it was stolen. Clemmons approaches the officer, tries to run and is shot.

The suspect in the Lakewood police slayings, Maurice Clemmons, was killed by a Seattle police officer early Tuesday morning.

BY MIKE LINDBLOMSeattle Times staff reporter

The Seattle police offi-cer who fatally shot mur-der suspect Maurice Clem-mons was justified in us-ing deadly force duringthe confrontation, accord-ing to state law.

State law authorizes po-lice to use deadly forceagainst a suspected felonwho has caused or is likelyto cause “serious physicalharm” to the officer orother people.

Clemmons is suspectedof killing four Lakewoodpolice officers at a coffeeshop Sunday morning. Se-attle police say one of theslain officers’ guns wasfound on Clemmons.

“In a generic sense, if apolice officer confronts amurder suspect anddoesn’t know definitivelywhether the suspect isarmed, if the officer ordersthe suspect to stop and thesuspect does not, the offi-cer is justified in usingdeadly force to preventthe escape of the suspect,and prevent continuingrisk to the community,”said attorney Ted Buck,who represents Seattle po-lice officers on use-of-force issues. He is also thelawyer for Officer Benja-min L. Kelly, who shotClemmons.

For most of the 20thcentury, police officers inseveral states were al-lowed to shoot any fleeingfelony suspect to preventescape. That changed af-ter a 1985 U.S. SupremeCourt case, Tennessee v.Garner, in which the courtruled that police violatedconstitutional rights whenthey killed an unarmedburglary suspect as he fledby climbing a fence.

Deadly force is permittedonly when a fleeing suspectposes a significant threat ofdeath or serious physicalinjury to the officer orothers, the justices said.

That standard has beenwritten into Washingtonstate law, RCW9A.16.040.

Clemmons’ violentbackground was well pub-licized during the two-daymanhunt.

State lawspells out when policecan usedeadly force

ing Clemmons evade captureduring the nearly two dayshe was on the run.

Another person, who wasarrested, allegedly drove thegetaway car from the shoot-ings; yet another bandagedthe gunshot wound Clem-mons sustained when one ofthe officers in the coffee-house returned fire, thecharges allege.

Three others have been ar-rested, one man and twowomen, and authorities saythey’re likely to file addition-al charges against those whoaided Clemmons in his flightfrom the worst single act ofviolence against police inWashington state history.

Clemmons himself didn’tlive to face charges after hewas fatally shot by a Seattlepolice officer early Tuesday.

To some who knew Clem-mons, 37, offering assistanceseemed to be almost auto-matic — a way of protectinga man who, despite a trou-bled, violent past, had giventhem help.

“The man was charismat-ic,” said Tim Bean, a Lake-wood counselor whomClemmons consulted lastspring. “He had a wholecommunity of family andfriends. They loved him.”

To outsiders, it makes nosense.

It may have been just apart of a “thug mentality andthug culture,” said PierceCounty sheriff’s spokesmanEd Troyer. “To us, it’s not go-ing to make sense.”

Troyer said some 50 detec-tives are working furiously tofigure out who, exactly,helped Clemmons evade cap-ture, and to untangle the re-

lationships among them. Clemmons was 17 when

he was convicted of punch-ing a woman and stealingher purse, burglarizing thehome of a state trooper andcarrying a gun at his highschool in Little Rock, Ark.

A judge sentenced him tomore than 100 years for thecrimes, a term Clemmonsand his family believed wasexcessive and would neverhave been given to a whitesuspect found guilty of thesame crimes, said Bean,whom Clemmons called his“psychological and spiritualadviser.”

“His family was well awareof the injustice that had beendone to him,” Bean said. “Itdoesn’t make the family andfriends any friendlier to thesystem.”

His sentence was commut-ed, and he came to Washing-ton in 2004 with a wife, Ni-cole Smith.

The Washington Depart-ment of Corrections agreedto supervise him, and he didwell enough that he was re-quired only to check in oncea year.

He started a business anddeveloped a network offriends and family.

“He’d repair their cars,give them cars and helpthem,” Bean said of Clem-mons. “He was such a giving,loving man that it was toomuch sometimes. They’d callhim first because he’d alwayshelp them out.”

But last spring, he beganacting bizarrely, familymembers told police.

In May, he allegedly threwstarted throwing rocks atcars and through the win-dows of his Tacoma home,then assaulted a PierceCounty sheriff’s deputy whocame to stop him.

Out on bail the next day,Clemmons awoke familymembers in the middle of thenight and demanded they allstrip, yelling, calling himselfthe Messiah, and saying

“trust me,” according tocharging documents. A 12-year-old relative told investi-gators and Smith, Clem-mons’ wife, that he had sex-ually assaulted her.

That day, Smith told inves-tigators she was scared.

Yet when Clemmons wascharged, she refused to coop-erate, saying it was all “a lie,”charging documents state.

Over the summer and fall,Clemmons spent some timein jail for violating the termsof his Arkansas parole — inpart because of the back-to-back incidents in May.

On Nov. 23, he got out onbail.

Five days later, accordingto charging papers, heshowed guns to three men inAuburn: Rickey Hinton, 47;Douglas Davis, 22; and EddieDavis, 20, a co-defendant inthe earlier rock-throwing al-tercation.

Clemmons asked Hinton,described as his half-brother,for keys to his white pickup,and told the men they should

keep their eyes on the TV be-cause he planned to kill po-lice, according to chargingdocuments and Troyer.

The next morning — Sun-day — four Lakewood policeofficers were killed in a cof-fee shop in Parkland. Wit-nesses said they saw the gun-man hop in a white pickupthat sped off. Another manwas at the wheel.

Details in charging docu-ments get a little murky afterthat. Several unnamed peo-ple are alleged to have of-fered rides and other assis-tance to Clemmons over thenext 40 hours or so.

But the documents areclear on one point: WhenClemmons returned to thehome Hinton and Davisshare after Sunday’s shoot-ings, they allegedly didn’thesitate to help him — evenafter Clemmons told the menhe had been shot by police,charging papers allege. Hin-ton told the Davises, who arebrothers, to get Clemmonsout of the area, and gave

them the keys to a white Pon-tiac, according to the docu-ments.

Clemmons allegedly toldthe Davises he had killed po-lice. They kept driving.

They made their way tothe Algona/Pacific-areahome of one of Clemmons’relatives, according to thecharges. There, an unnamedfemale relative and the Da-vises helped Clemmons treathis gunshot wound, thecharges allege.

Afterward, the relativedrove Clemmons to the Au-burn SuperMall and then toan apartment complex,where Clemmons got in a cardriven by another unnamedwoman, according to thecharges.

At some point, the paperssay, a female friend tookClemmons to her house inSeattle and he admitted hehad shot police. She “boughtmedical supplies, helpedtreat a gunshot wound to historso; he changed hisclothes, washed and dried aload of [HIS] laundry,” ac-cording to charging docu-ments. She later droppedhim off in Seattle’s Leschineighborhood.

By then, Clemmons wasone of the most wanted fugi-tives in state history.

At least one relative want-ed no part in the getaway.Clemmons allegedly phonedan aunt in Leschi, saying hehad been shot and needed aplace to hide. She thoughtbetter of it, drove to the po-lice station before his arrivaland filed a report.

The Davis brothers plead-ed not guilty Tuesday to the

charges of rendering crimi-nal assistance. Bail for EddieDavis is $700,000; DouglasDavis’ bail is $500,000.

The court hearing was at-tended by relatives of Greg-ory Richards, one of the fourslain officers, including hiswidow and one of his daugh-ters. Many struggled in vainto hold back their tears.

Afterward, Richards’ sis-ter-in-law, Melanie Burwell,said of the defendants,“They’re not human to me.”

Hinton was ordered to jailon a 72-hour hold whileprosecutors prepare to filecharges against him. His bailwas set at $2 million, andTroyer said authorities be-lieve he may have played “alarger role” in the crime.

Arrested Tuesday but notyet charged was a man TheAssociated Press identified asa convicted murderer whoserved prison time withClemmons in Arkansas. He isbeing held for investigationof four counts of renderingcriminal assistance.

Troyer said police have yetanother man in custody whois believed to have driven thegetaway car after the slay-ings. If police determine thisman knew what was going tohappen, he could be chargedwith murder, Troyer said.

Two women were also ar-rested Tuesday, both for in-vestigation of multiple ac-counts of rendering criminalassistance. One, in her 50s,was taken into custody in Pa-cific. The other was arrestedin Des Moines.

“We want to hold every-body involved accountable,”Troyer said.

Seattle Times staff reporters MikeCarter and Sara Jean Greencontributed to this report.

Maureen O’Hagan: 206-464-2562or mohagan@seattletimes.com

< NetworkFROM A1

CLEMMONS WAS SHELTERED, TREATED

FOR GUNSHOT WOUND

More arrests likely

E L L E N M . B A N N E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

Douglas Davis enters Pierce County Superior Court for hisarraignment Tuesday afternoon.

Eddie Davis

Rickey Hinton

WEB EXTRA

Read the charging documentsfor some of those whoallegedly aided Clemmons.seattletimes.com

BY LYNN THOMPSONSeattle Times staff reporter

Police Monday night opened thestreet outside the Parkland coffeeshop where four police officerswere shot dead Sunday morning.By noon on Tuesday, the grassy cor-ner was lined with bouquets offlowers, their cellophane wrappersrattling in the cold wind.

A steady stream of people came topay their respects to the fallen offi-cers — parents with infants and oldpeople with canes, men in businesssuits and a couple in biker leathers,teenagers in sweat pants and in skin-ny jeans. And standing guard, in theempty parking lot outside Forza Cof-fee, dozens of police officers from ahalf-dozen nearby towns —Milton,Sumner, Puyallup, Des Moines, Uni-versity Place and Graham.

One mourner, Joe Smith of Span-away, wore a blue bandanna on hishead and with an eagle featherwaved smoke from a smudge potover the length of the growing me-morial. A member of the OklahomaPeoria tribe, Smith said he hadheard the devastating news Sundaymorning at a local gas station andwanted to offer a Native Americanprayer.

He chanted and swept the smokethat burned from a coil of twistedtobacco leaves, grandfather sage,

lavender and cedar bark. After hehad crouched and chanted overeach memory book with a slain offi-cer’s name inscribed on the cover,he translated his prayer.

“They came in a good way,” hesaid, meaning that the officers’ liveswere dedicated to public service. Herepeated each officer’s name: MarkRenninger, Tina Griswold, RonaldOwens and Gregory Richards.“Take them home in a good way,”he continued. “Help the communityto heal.”

Barbara Gilreath, a Sea-Tac FireDepartment chaplain, had set outthe memory books that morning sovisitors could write words of condo-lence to the surviving family mem-bers. In all, the officers left ninechildren behind.

“People want to come where it

happened,” Gilreath said. “They canwrite what’s on their hearts and itwill be very healing for the fam-ilies.”

Debbie Piper, of Tacoma, careful-ly placed a single white rose andthen a single red one on the grow-ing display of flowers. She spoke ofthe officers’ being killed as theywere doing paperwork before theirSunday shifts. “They were not pre-pared,” she said.

Several miles away, at the Lake-wood Police Department, anothermemorial spread up the hillsideoutside the brick station. Therewere large funeral wreaths from lo-cal businesses, teddy bears andstuffed ducks that will ultimately bedelivered to the officers’ children,flickering votive candles and othercandles that had burned down,

spilling their melted wax onto thesidewalk.

Police funneled traffic to a singlelane outside the station, and dozensof people stood quietly in the street.

Wendy Galan, who lives andworks in Lakewood, knew OfficerGriswold. Coincidentally, she said,they were both 4 feet 11 inches tall.Griswold, she said, was strong andfeisty.

“I was hoping it wasn’t her. WhenI saw her picture, I felt like someonehad punched me in the stomach,”Galan said.

Lakewood police officers came outfrom the station and took pictures ofthe memorial. They hugged eachother and hugged the officers fromneighboring towns who were direct-ing traffic and standing guard.

An officer from Des Moines puthis arms around two from Lake-wood. “You guys be safe out there,”he said.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 orlthompson@seattletimes.com

M I K E S I E G E L / T H E S E A T T L E T I M E S

A Lakewood police officer pauses Tuesday morning in front of a memorial set up outside the Lakewood Police Department to honor the four offi-cers who were killed on Sunday. Another public memorial, with piles of bouquets, formed near the coffee shop where they were shot.

Quietly, public shares griefMemorial service set for Tuesday

A service for the four Lakewood officers will take place at 1 p.m. Tuesdayat the Tacoma Dome. More than 20,000 law-enforcement officers areexpected to attend. The event is open to the public. Anyone interested involunteering can e-mail lakewoodmemorialservice@gmail.com.

Prayer service, candlelight walk tonight A prayer service and candlelight walk will be at 7 tonight at the LakewoodYMCA, 9715 Lakewood Dr. S.W., Tacoma. The service is sponsored by LifeCenter church in partnership with the Lakewood YMCA, Tillicum Youth forChrist and other area churches.

How you can helpDonations for the officers’ familiescan be mailed to the LakewoodPolice Independent Guild, P.O. Box99579, Lakewood, WA 98499.Donations can also be made onlineat www.lpig.us.

A6 News WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009 1 ROP

4 FALLEN OFFICERS

Jerry LargeSeattle Timesstaff columnist

When my son, who islinked to the Web 24/7,told me the shootingshad happened, my firstthought was howhorrible it was that fourpeople had been killedthat way. My secondthought was I hopedwhoever did it wasn’tblack.

That was not out of concernfor the shooter.

Before writing a word, I’d al-ready gotten an e-mail from aman gleefully pointing out therace of the shooting suspect.

The e-mail’s subject line was“Blacks make the papers” andit included photos of MauriceClemmons, who is believed tohave shot and killed the Lake-wood police officers, andChristopher Monfort, who isaccused of killing Seattle po-lice Officer Timothy Brentonon Oct. 31.

Most folks aren’t like thereader who e-mailed me, butthe race of the two accusedkillers will be in the back of alot of minds, quietly reinforc-ing ideas already present.

Monday my editor askedwhether I might want to writeabout that in light of the twoattacks. I said I’d see what Icould come up with, but wasreluctant. Why drag race into itwhen the shootings weren’tabout that? Except, of course,race is part of the backgroundnoise.

Still, it felt too soon, so I putit off for a day.

Monday I was thinking ofnine children who had a parentsnatched from them by a gun-man. I’m a parent. I share thatwith the four slain officers. Idon’t share anything more im-portant than that with Clem-mons.

It seems he intended toshoot police officers, but thegunman killed four peoplewho were also parents, sib-lings, children, spouses,friends. He caused grief, sad-ness, pain and anger.

I read the messages peoplewere posting in response tostories in The Times about thekillings, though I know theyaren’t always the most accu-rate reflection of public senti-ment.

Anger dominated, and it wasflung in many directions.Sometimes at Clemmons, whowas called a freak and humangarbage.

But often people turnedtheir anger into a stick withwhich to beat conservatives orliberals, anyone they alreadydisliked.

Some of the online postingsmade race an issue, but theydon’t concern me so much.

I worry more that police,who have good reason to bewary and upset, will be affect-ed, at least for a time, by thatone thing the men had in com-mon.

The two suspects are as dif-ferent from each other as theyare from me.

Whatever they did, they didas individuals.

Clemmons had a long recordof trouble, while Monfortworked hard and went to col-lege to improve his situation.

One is tall and thin, theother short and stout. Do looksexplain their actions?

Monfort said he was trou-bled by unfairness in the jus-tice system, but he was trou-bled by far more than that.

He was violent and angry,and so was Clemmons. That’sthe group to which they be-long. The violent and angry.

Their brotherhood includesIsaac Zamora, who killed sixpeople, including a sheriff’sdeputy, in Skagit County; theGreen River Killer; and a longlist of others.

I feel sadness, frustrationand even anger about all thedeaths.

Those feelings arise from aplace much deeper than myskin. And whatever drove thekillers was more deeply rootedtoo.

Jerry Large’s column appearsMonday and Thursday. Reach him at

206-464-3346 orjlarge@seattletimes.com.

ANSWERS MORE THANSKIN DEEP

Clemmons. The tension between the

two states started in Julyand is captured in a round ofe-mail exchanges that showjust how frustrated Wash-ington officials became withtheir Arkansas counterparts.

Clemmons was arrestedin Washington on July 1.The following day he wasformally charged with sec-ond-degree rape of a child— the eighth felony chargefiled against him in Wash-ington this year alone. Alleight of those charges tracedto a spree of violence in Mayand were still pendingagainst Clemmons while thetwo states tangled over howto deal with him.

Arkansas had an interestin Clemmons because he re-mained on parole in thatstate. Convicted of at leastfive felony charges, Clem-mons served more than 10years in Arkansas’ prisonsystem before being re-leased in 2004 and movingto Washington.

When Clemmons landedin trouble in May 2009, Ar-kansas issued a warrant forviolating the conditions ofhis parole. This warrant, ifenforced, would have al-lowed Washington to keepClemmons in jail withoutchance of posting bond.

But on July 16, an Arkan-

sas official notified theWashington State Depart-ment of Corrections (DOC)that Arkansas was rescind-ing its warrant.

Marjorie Owens, a Wash-ington DOC administrator,wrote a blistering responseon July 23, saying Arkansas’decision appeared to violatethe Interstate Compact forAdult Offender Supervision(ICAOS), an agreement gov-erning how states treat oneanother’s offenders who areon supervision.

“I’m concerned that youhave no problem releasingyour offender into our com-munity, based on his behav-ior,” she wrote. “I thoughtICAOS was all about com-munity safety.”

Owens also wrote: “Hope-fully the offender will notget out on bail.”

On Aug. 5, an Arkansasparole official named LindaStrong sent a terse reply:“The warrant was rescind-ed. When the pendingcharges are adjudicated wewill reconsider the case.”

A document released byArkansas Tuesday says thewarrant “was recalled at therequest of [Arkansas De-partment of CommunityCorrection] director G. Da-vid Guntharp after conver-sations he had with the of-fender’s wife and mother.”But Guntharp, in an inter-view, said he does not recalldiscussing the matter withClemmons’ family. Clem-mons’ mother died yearsago.

Rhonda Sharp, a spokes-woman for Guntharp, saidArkansas retracted the war-rant because the warrant la-beled Clemmons an “ab-

sconder” — meaning he hadfled or was avoiding super-vision. But Arkansas re-ceived a letter from Clem-mons’ defense attorney con-tradicting that and claimingthe Pierce County charges“may be dropped.”

Arkansas’ decision baffledWashington officials. Seek-ing help, they consulted theWashington State AttorneyGeneral’s Office and the na-tional office that overseesthe interstate compact. Thelatter office said Arkansas“should not have quashedtheir warrant,” an internale-mail between WashingtonDOC employees says. Oneadministrator for the Wash-ington DOC called the case a“major malfunction” andsuggested ways “to work‘around’ Arkansas on thisone.”

Washington’s alarm couldbe traced, in part, to con-cerns about the dangerClemmons posed. A PierceCounty prosecutor worriedClemmons “might continueto make contact” with chil-dren he was accused of mo-lesting.

A Pierce County sheriff’sdetective told a correctionsofficer “it would not beeasy” if DOC officers or sher-iff’s deputies had to arrestClemmons again. “She saidMr. Clemmons did not likethem,” an e-mail says.

The records releasedTuesday show that fromJuly until November, Clem-mons was in and out of jail.At one point, a DOC em-ployee wrote an e-mail say-ing: “I was going to serve Of-fender today only to find outhe bailed out!”

On Tuesday, Washing-

ton’s top prison officialblasted Arkansas.

When the WashingtonDOC initially asked for —and got — a nationwide fu-gitive warrant from Arkan-sas in May, the WashingtonDOC closed the case, endingits oversight of Clemmons.The DOC believed Clem-mons would now be Arkan-sas’ responsibility.

“At that point, he’s a prob-lem for the state of Arkan-sas,” Washington DOC Sec-retary Eldon Vail said. “Ifhe’s picked up, he’s goingback.”

But when Arkansas re-scinded its warrant, that leftDOC temporarily withoutsupervision on a man it con-sidered dangerous. Vail saidif the Washington and Ar-kansas positions were re-versed, Washington wouldhave taken Clemmons back.Last year, Washington re-took 986 felons from otherstates, Vail said.

“We do this every day,” hesaid.

Vail said the Clemmonscase was his worst experi-ence with another state inhis 33 years with the Wash-ington DOC: “[Gov. ChrisGregoire’s] question to meabout this case is a goodone: ‘Why would we evertake anyone from Arkansasin the future?’ I haven’t got-ten back to her.”

On Oct. 2, after Washing-ton DOC officials pleadedanew with Arkansas, Arkan-

sas issued a second warrant.But the two states differ onwhether the warrant couldbe enforced in Washingtonstate. Arkansas says the sec-ond warrant was just asgood as the first.

“It is a valid warrant,”Sharp said. “It is a warrantthat differs little, if at all,from the first.”

But Scott Blonien, an in-house attorney for Washing-ton DOC, said two elementsshow Arkansas did not in-tend to enforce the Oct. 2warrant. A cover sheet at-tached to it left unchecked abox that reads: “Warrant is-sued. Keep us apprised of of-fender’s availability for re-taking,” a term that meanssending an offender home.The May 28 warrant hadthat box checked.

And, unlike the May 28warrant, the second warrantwas not entered into the Na-tional Crime InformationCenter (NCIC), a law-en-forcement database. Inter-state compact guidelines ap-pear to require that the stateissuing a warrant — Arkan-sas, in this case — must en-ter the warrant into NCIC inorder to make it enforce-able.

Pierce County employeeschecked the NCIC twice andfound no warrants for Clem-mons, a county official said.

Clemmons posted$190,000 bail on Nov. 23and walked out of the PierceCounty Jail.Staff writers Christine Clarridge,

Susan Kelleher and MaureenO’Hagan contributed to this

report.Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605

or jmartin@seattletimes.com;Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or

jbrunner@seattletimes.com.

< E-mailsFROM A1

STATES WRESTLEDOVER WARRANTS

Clemmons’ freedoma ‘major malfunction’

WEB EXTRA

Read e-mailsbetween officials in Arkansasand Washington seattletimes.com