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SNIPPET: "Seattle police officer Benjamin L. Kelly is being hailed as a hero for his actions early Tuesday morning, in which he single-handedly shot and killed Maurice Clemmons, the man wanted in Sunday's killings of four Pierce County officers. After an intense, two-day manhunt for Clemmons, Kelly had stopped to check out a stolen car parked on the side of a road in Rainier Valley. Clemmons was outside the car. Kelly recognized him from police bulletins and ordered him to put up his hands, police said. When he refused, Kelly shot Clemmons." SNIPPET: "The pistol found on Clemmons matched the...

When Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of killing four Lakewood police officers, walked free from a Pierce County jail last week, it wasn't for lack of effort on the part of Washington officials to keep him behind bars.Documents released Tuesday show that a wide variety of state and local officials — everyone from prosecutors to sheriff's deputies to corrections officers — viewed Clemmons as a dangerous man, and wanted desperately to keep him in custody.But Washington officials encountered resistance from an unlikely source — their correctional colleagues in Arkansas. The acrimony has since become so intense, according to Pierce...

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A court-ordered psychological evaluation of Maurice Clemmons in October found that he was a risk to public safety, but that there was insufficient reason to commit the man who allegedly went on to kill four Lakewood police officers over the weekend. Clemmons told the psychologists he hallucinated about "people drinking blood and people eating babies, and lawless on the street, like people were cannibals." He went on to say he had "no faith in the justice system" and that he thought he was being "maliciously persecuted because I'm black and they believe the police." Clemmons was...

Those who are moderate to conservative are increasingly frustrated with a lack of representation in government. The former Alaskan governor and GOP vice presidential candidate was in Richland on Sunday autographing her new book, "Going Rogue." The event at Hastings drew an estimated 2,300 people. Some waited 26 hours for her signature on the book. About 300 people were turned away when the three-hour session (scheduled for two hours) was ended. Yet, even those folks who didn't get her autograph remained enamored with Palin. "She stands for everything that America was built on," Stacey Coordes of Pasco told a Seattle...

Need evidence for Darwinian evolution? Just make it up. That’s the lesson of Donald Prothero’s book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero is a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. On November 30, he teamed up with atheist Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine) to debate Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg of the Discovery Institute. Shermer wrote the foreword to Prothero’s book, calling it “the best book ever written on the subject.” In fact, “Don’s visual presentation of the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution is...

Pierce County authorities say a man who served time in an Arkansas prison with Maurice Clemmons has been identified as the getaway driver in the fatal shooting of four Lakewood police officers. Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says Darcus D. Allen is being held in Pierce County for investigation of rendering criminal assistance. Troyer says Allen will be charged on Wednesday in connection with Sunday's police shooting. Allen was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a 1990 double murder at a Little Rock liquor store. He was paroled in 2004. Arkansas prison spokeswoman Dina Tyler says Allen and Clemmons never...

In a half-mile-long procession of motorcycles and patrol cars with their lights flashing, the Lakewood Police Department brought its four fallen officers home Tuesday morning. The bodies of the four officers slain Sunday morning were taken from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s building at South 36th Street and Pacific Avenue to Mountain View Funeral Home on Steilacoom Boulevard in Lakewood. They had been brought to the Medical Examiner early Sunday evening from Parkland where they were shot by a similar escort of Lakewood officers.
Four Lakewood Fire Department Medic One units carried the bodies of Officers Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald...

At least a half-dozen friends and relatives of Maurice Clemmons helped him flee the Parkland coffee shop where he killed four police officers, helped him clean up and treat a bullet wound and took him to a house in the Leschi house in Seattle. Two of them have been arrested for rendering criminal assistance based on a probable cause declaration. They are Eddie Lee Davis and Douglas Edward Davis who live in a residence on 132nd Street South. According to the declaration of Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist, the two were among six who helped Clemmons after the Sunday morning...

Maurice Clemmons was shot just above the belly button by a Lakewood police officer during a struggle at the Forza shop. The wound was stuffed with cotton balls and covered with duct tape, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told The News Tribune. "I am surprised he survived," Troyer said. Investigators believe Clemmons' sister and another woman triaged him and help transport him. Troyer said investigators had information Clemmons was hiding out in the Rainier Valley neighborhood. The Seattle police officer who killed Clemmons "stumbled into him," Troyer said. "He's lucky he's alive." Investigators were looking into whether Clemmons stole...

Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist said his office is "working full speed" on those who've been arrested on suspicion of helping Maurice Clemmons in connection with Sunday's shootings of four Lakewood police officers. "What we are looking at this morning is anyone who helped the criminal," Lindquist said. "You help a criminal, you become a criminal and we are going to prosecute you like a criminal."

The man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot and killed by Seattle police early Tuesday, a sheriff's spokesman said.

SEATTLE - A Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman says Seattle police have fatally shot the suspect in the murders of four Lakewood Police officers. Detective Ed Troyer says Seattle police found Clemmons after Pierce County authorities supplied addresses of possible hiding spots. The police confronted Clemmons in the 4400 block of S. Kenyon Street.

SEATTLE — A sheriff's spokesman in Washington state says Seattle police have fatally shot the man suspected of gunning down four police officers.

Maurice Clemmons was shot and wounded in South Seattle and has been taken to Harborview Medical Center, according to a law enforcement source.

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Investigators searching for the suspected killer of four Seattle-area police officers have rounded up several of his relatives and friends to keep them from helping him escape, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday. Police have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons, "and we expect that number to grow," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. Some of Clemmons' family and friends have been trying to help him elude police and seek treatment for a gunshot wound, and they have tried to divert investigators by calling in false leads, he said....

SEATTLE (AP) - Authorities believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family, a police spokesman said Monday night. Officers believe Maurice Clemmons was shot in the abdomen during the attack on the officers at a Parkland coffee shop, and had speculated he might have died. But Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff, said investigators have questioned several people who had provided assistance to Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings.

<p>A Pierce County sheriff's spokesman says authorities believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family.</p> <p>Spokesman Ed Troyer said Monday night that police have questioned several people who had provided assistance to Maurice Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings. Troyer says investigators now think Clemmons is on his own.</p>

program for interest-free bond funding not working Millions of dollars of what was supposed to be interest free bonds to help school districts across the country will likely go unused and rural districts where unemployment is rampant will likely be some of the biggest victims, some education leaders say. In Hoquiam, Washougal and elsewhere around the country, School Boards and superintendents are turning away what was supposed to be “free money” to help with school-related construction projects. Under a provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, local school districts come up with voter-approved bonds, levies or general fund dollars...

SEATTLE — A man suspected of gunning down four uniformed officers in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash., early Sunday told people in advance of the shooting to “watch TV tomorrow, I’m going to shoot some cops,” according to the investigators. “Unfortunately, nobody reported that,” said Hunter George, a spokesman for Pierce County, whose Sheriff’s Office is leading the investigation. Mr. George said police have detained “a few people” who had been in contact with the suspect, Maurice Clemmons, 37, in the last two days, but it was not clear whether they would face charges.

Police trying to hunt down a man suspected of the execution-style killings of four of their colleagues burst into a house in Seattle today after spending the night trying to talk him out of the building - only to find that he was not there. The setback came after a night of loudspeaker warnings, explosions and gunshots all apparently designed to flush Maurice Clemmons, a convicted armed robber, out of the house. Mr Clemmons, 37, is the prime suspect in the case and witnesses to the murders yesterday morning in a coffee shop on the edge of the McChord Air...

Police are searching the University of Washington campus this morning after a report that suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons was seen getting off a Metro bus on campus. The report came about an hour after a Seattle SWAT team searched a Leschi house it had surrounded overnight, but found no sign of Clemmons. The UW sent out an alert to staff, students and faculty, said UW police spokesman Jerome Solomon. He could not say what bus was involved, nor who called in the alleged sighting. He also couldn't say where on campus Clemmons was spotted.

...Tina was our conservative friend. She was excited to be a part of the Olympia Tea Parties and proudly stated why she got involved in politics over the past year. Tina was sharp too, only a couple mornings ago we had a great discussion on the future of our Republic and how we felt true limited government conservatives should take back out political party. If you wanted any details over the massive government spending she would have them for you. If anyone thinks these comments are off color then you did not know Tina well. She would tell you where...

The Seattle Times reports that the man suspected of shooting four police officers in Washington State was granted clemency in Arkansas nine years ago by then-Governor Mike Huckabee.

SEATTLE -- The suspect in the fatal shooting of four officers in Parkland was not found inside a Seattle home that was surrounded by a SWAT team and numerous officers, Pierce Co. Sheriff Detective Ed Troyer said. Maurice Clemmons, 37, was believed to be holed up in the home in the Leschi neighborhood after he was shot and wounded by one of the four slain officers before fleeing from the Parkland coffee shop where the officers were gunned down.

SEATTLE -- A suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was holed up at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, police said. Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod him from hiding. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood, which is some 30 miles from the original crime scene. [snip] Clemmons, 37, who had a lengthy prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago, became the prime target Sunday in the search for...

SEATTLE – A suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was holed up at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, police said. Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod him from hiding. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood, which is some 30 miles from the original crime scene.

Police surround Seattle home where person of interest in police shooting may be hiding A SWAT team and police negotiators surrounded a Leschi home in Seattle where the man sought for questioning in the Lakewood police shooting may be hiding. By Seattle Times staff A SWAT team and police negotiators surrounded a Leschi home in Seattle where the man sought for questioning in the Lakewood police shooting may be hiding. Police responded to the home at East Yesler Way and 32nd Avenue South where police stopped a woman who was leaving the home. She told them Maurice Clemmons was on...

A SWAT team and police negotiators surrounded a Leschi home in Seattle where the man sought for questioning in the Lakewood police shooting may be hiding. Police responded to the home at East Yesler Way and 32nd Avenue South where police stopped a woman who was leaving the home. She told them Maurice Clemmons was on the property and bleeding, according to a law enforcement source. The woman told police that someone had dropped Clemmons off at the home. The source also said police had received tips about two other properties they needed to search, in Queen Anne and Renton....

Four Police Officers Fatally Shot Near Seattle Authorities call the attack an ambush on the officers, who were meeting in a coffee shop before their shift. At least one returned fire and may have injured the lone gunman. No one else was hurt. [Pics in URL] The four slain officers, from left: Greg Richards, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens and Mark Renninger. (From the Associated Press / November 29, 2009) By Kim Murphy November 30, 2009 Four Seattle-area police officers were shot to death Sunday morning in a coffee shop in what officials called a brazen ambush by a lone gunman....

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 19:44:51 Ark. ex-con of interest in slayings The tip I gave you earlier is panning out. Washington autthorities are seeking Maurice Clemmons, 37, for questioning in the slaying of four Washington police officers. Clemmons is wanted in Arkansas, where he has an extensive criminal record, according to unnamed sources in early reports. Clemmons also is mentioned in this report. My source says the man wanted for questioning is believed to be the same Maurice Clemmons as an Arkansas ex-con with an extensive record of armed robbery who became a subject of some controversy for political...

Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers this morning, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health. Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protestations of prosecutors. "This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said Sunday night when informed that Clemmons was being sought in connection to the killings. Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions...

A 37-year-old Tacoma man, Maurice Clemmons, is being sought for questioning in the execution-style shooting of four Lakewood police officers this morning, according to two law-enforcement sources. Clemmons, who was recently released from jail, has an extensive criminal record in Pierce County and Arkansas, court records show. Clemmons is wanted in Arkansas and faces eight criminal charges in Washington state.

RICHLAND Sarah Palin didn’t wait to get inside Hastings bookstore this morning to greet the thousands of people who’d stood in line for hours to meet her. On the drive to her scheduled book signing at the 1425 George Washington Way store, Palin made an impromptu stop along Jadwin Avenue and Torbett Street to thank her fans. She walked along the street for at least 15 minutes shaking hands and posing for pictures, while carrying her young son Trig. “We were stoked. It was worth the drive,” said Katie McGuire-Forbes. She and daughter Raechel McGuire left Troy, Idaho, at 5:45...

comments Four Lakewood Police Officers murdered on Sunday may have been the target of gangs on the east side of Tacoma. Previous attacks on officers have been reported. On Sunday, Nov. 29, four Lakewood officers were gunned down in a coffee shop ambush before the start of their shift in Parkland. There are no suspects in custody. The police have recently started a crack down on Mexican gangs in the state. In July 2009, after the gang crackdown was announced. On July 30, 2009 a Lakewood police officer's personal car was spray painted with gang tags and set on fire,...

Note: Video included. # November 29, 2009 "4 officers shot dead in Wash. coffee shop 'ambush'" CNN.com SNIPPET: "LAKEWOOD, Wash. — SNIPPET: "A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, he said. Police are looking for one man and possibly a second person in the attack, which occurred about 8 a.m., Troyer said. The suspect is described as an African-American man, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, wearing a black coat and blue jeans, with a "scruffy" appearance, he said. The man is believed to have fled the coffee shop on foot,...

PARKLAND, Wash. - Four Lakewood Police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning in what authorities called a targeted ambush at a coffee shop. Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says the officers - four male and one female - were in full uniform and wearing bulletproof vests, sitting in Forza coffee shop near 116th Street and Steele Street on the east side of the Air Force base at about 8:30 a.m. Troyer says the officers were preparing for their shift when a suspect or suspects "walked in with a handgun, opened fire multiple times and then fled the scene,"...

Four police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning in what authorities called a targeted ambush at a coffee shop. Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says officers were in a coffee shop near 116th Street and Steele Street on the east side of the Air Force base at about 8:30 a.m. Police are searching for a male suspect and interviewing witnesses. Forza Coffee is near McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma. Troyer says the officers were preparing for their shift when a suspect or suspects "walked in with a handgun, opened fire multiple times and then fled the scene,"...

Police investigators have identified three of the four officers. All are from the local area. The fourth officer they are still trying to identify. Law enforcements from all over the region have responded to the scene. King County Guardian One helicopter is in the area. {{snip}} The suspect fled on foot after the shooting. The suspect is described a black male, 5'8 to 5'9 and in his 20s or 30s. He had scruffy facial hair with a black coat and blue jeans. He used a handgun. There are possibly looking for another person and are searching multiple places, including residences...

PARKLAND, Wash. - Four police officers were shot and killed in a Sunday morning ambush at a Parkland-area coffee shop, officials said. Pierce County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ed Troyer called the ambush "a targeted attack." Officials at the scene said two gunmen burst into the Forza Coffee Co. outlet at 11401 Steele St. South, shot the four uniformed officers as they were working on their laptop computers, then fled the scene. Other customers were inside the coffee shop at the time of the attack, but none of them were shot or injured. A $10,000 reward is being offered for any...

SEATTLE — Four police officers were shot dead in an ambush at a Washington state coffee house, a sheriff's official said Sunday.

Multiple police officers have been shot near McChord AFB in Washington state, official says

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has reported that four police officers have been shot dead in an ambush at the Forza Coffee coffee shop at 11401 on South Steele Street in Lakewood Sunday morning. Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said investigators are immediately offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the suspect, and that number is expected to grow.

A Washington state family whose turkey was stolen by a dog on Thanksgiving have quite a story to tell about how they eventually got the bird back (Nov 28). See Video News for more

OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire is "seriously considering" legislation that would allow four-minute Keno games as a way to help deal with a projected $2.6 billion budget shortfall. The games could bring in an estimated $30 million a year. That's not much money compared with the budget gap, but lawmakers are hunting for any cash they can find. Similar bills have been proposed — and have died — in the past. Things could be different this time, given the severity of the state's budget crisis, but the state's tribes likely will fight any effort. Washington already has a Keno game...

KENNEWICK -- Cynthia and Gary Waddoups weren't shy to admit Thursday that they were on a mission to meet Sarah Palin. Dressed in jeans and coats, the Kennewick couple stood near the start line of the Turkey Trot hoping to see the woman they want back on the campaign trail for a run at the White House. The Waddoupses weren't running or walking in the annual charity race. But Palin, in town to visit relatives for the Thanksgiving holiday, had pre-registered to join 3,000 others on the course, and her notoriety attracted a mass of onlookers in Columbia Park. "Sorry,...

According to a piece in the Everett Herald recently re-elected council member, John "Freedom County" Koster, doesn't think there are enough venues for gun owners in Snohomish County and is hoping to repeal the county's current ban on firearms in the county's parks. Herald reporter Noah Haglund writes, "If a new law passes, you could feel free to tote a legally owned firearm into county parks. Just don’t shoot it, unless it’s in self-defense. County code, as it reads now, prohibits people from carrying or discharging guns in county parks. Lifting the long-standing ban is mostly a house-keeping measure to...

KENNEWICK -- Thousands of people from across the Tri-Cites and the country were in Kennewick for the annual Turkey Trot to benefit the Benton-Franklin Red Cross. The appearance of Sarah Palin overshadowed the whole event, as hundreds of people tried to get an up close view of the former Alaskan Governor.

PASCO — Sarah Palin is excited to be in the Tri-Cities. Moments after arriving by private jet Wednesday evening from Orlando, Fla., she told reporters, "It's kind of surreal. But it's really good to be back in the Tri-Cities to reconnect with the roots." The former Alaska governor's last visit with family here was about a year ago, she said during an impromptu news conference as she held her son Trig and her daughter Piper stood next to her.

More details are now coming out from the lawsuit filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA), filed in the Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Los Angeles (Central District). AFA's lawsuit contends that the California Science Center engaged in viewpoint discrimination when cancelling AFA's contract to screen the pro-intelligent design (ID) documentary Darwin’s Dilemma at the Center’s IMAX Theatre on October 25th. As discussed below, AFA's complaint contains e-mails from California Science Center staff revealing that the Center cared more about how it would be perceived by ID-critics in the...

A lawsuit has been filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) for cancelling the AFA’s contract to screen the Darwin’s Dilemma documentary on October 25th. According to AFA’s press release: American Freedom Alliance (AFA), a non-profit group, has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against a popular science museum for cancelling an event exploring the topic of intelligent design. The group says its free speech rights were violated when the California Science Center (CSC) abruptly reversed a decision to allow the showing of a pro-intelligent design documentary at the museum’s IMAX Theater. The program was...