Lakewood Shooter Suspect at Large in Seattle

Two people watch from the western perimeter of the stand-off at 30th & Yesler. Photo: CHS

UPDATE: Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed in the Rainier Valley early Tuesday morning, December 1.

Sunday night around nine, SWAT rolled to Seattle's Leschi neighborhood on a tip that Maurice Clemmons was hiding in a house there. After negotiating with the house for several hours, sending in a search robot, and tear-gassing it, police entered themselves but Clemmons was gone. (Police say they have evidence he was there, and that he was shot by one of the slain Lakewood police officers.) Reports so far this morning have Clemmons appearing in the University District, and then Beacon Hill.

Overnight, the 37-year-old Maurice Clemmons was upgraded from a "person of interest" to suspect in the slayings of four Lakewood police officers on Sunday morning. The murderer appeared at the Forza coffee shop across the street from the McChord Air Force base, buying a coffee and displaying a handgun to baristas who turned and fled, and then turning on the four police officers there, killing all of them, despite their vests.

Suspect Maurice Clemmons

The story has grown sadly reminiscent of the Shannon Harps murder, as the suspect Clemmons has a long trail of felonies and mental instability in his wake, and should have been in prison. A decade ago, he was released from the remaining 47 years of a sentence in Arizona. Publicola has the plea for clemency that Clemmons submitted to Governor Huckabee, who then commuted his sentence. (Huckabee has released a statement.) Later parole violations were not prosecuted.

In Washington this past May, Clemmons was charged with assaulting police officers who were investigating reports that Clemmons was throwing rocks through his neighbors' windows. He was also out on bail after being charged with child rape.