Manhunt in slayings of cops ends with suspect's death

[December 02, 2009]  SEATTLE (AP) -- An ex-con accused of gunning down four police officers patched the gunshot wound to his belly with gauze and duct tape and managed to elude a massive manhunt until a lone officer stopped to check out a suspicious vehicle in the middle of the night.

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Moments later, Maurice Clemmons was dead.

Clemmons' death early Tuesday brought to an end two days of fear across the Seattle-Tacoma area and one of the biggest manhunts the region has ever seen. Dozens of police officers milled around at the scene afterward, some solemnly shaking hands and patting each other on the back.

Officer Benjamin Kelly had spotted a stolen car, its hood up and engine running, on a south Seattle street and pulled over to check it out. As the patrolman sat in his cruiser, a burly man with a large mole on his cheek came up from behind, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel said.

The officer turned, stepped outside his car and recognized the most wanted man in the Pacific Northwest. Clemmons, 37, was shot by the patrolman after Clemmons made a move for a gun he had taken from one of the slain officers, police said.

"Good thing he wasn't able to get the gun out here or we might have had a different ending to this whole thing," Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said. "The officer in Seattle did a good job of making sure he went home safe."

Clemmons eluded capture thanks to family and friends who provided him with shelter, cell phones, cash and first aid for the severe wound he suffered when one of the dying officers in Sunday morning's Pierce County coffee-shop rampage got off a shot, police said. Six to seven of those associates were being arrested.

Among them, police said, was Darcus D. Allen, a convicted murderer who served in prison with Clemmons in Arkansas and is accused of driving the getaway truck after the coffee shop rampage; two men who later traveled with Clemmons as he eluded police; and Clemmons' sister, who bandaged him up and gave him a lift part way to Seattle.

It wasn't immediately known if she or Allen had attorneys; the other two have pleaded not guilty.

"Some are friends, some are acquaintances, some are partners in crime, some are relatives. Now they're all partners in crime," Troyer said.

Troyer said paramedics were stunned that Clemmons lived as long as he did with the bullet wound.

It was not entirely clear where Clemmons was while on the run. But authorities believe he visited locations in Seattle, Pacific and Auburn in the hours after the ambush in the Tacoma suburb of Parkland, according to Pierce County documents filed in the case against Eddie Lee Davis, one of those charged with rendering assistance.

Police rushed from place to place, following tips that often came up empty or yielded only accomplices. They searched homes and apartments and at one point cordoned off a Seattle park after a report of blood in a restroom.

On Sunday, Clemmons briefly took refuge at a house in Seattle's well-to-do Leschi neighborhood, slipping away before police surrounded the home in an all-night siege that ended when SWAT officers stormed the place and realized he wasn't there.

Before Clemmons arrived at the Seattle house, a woman described by police as a friend bought medical supplies for him and helped treat the gunshot wound. Clemmons also washed and dried a load of laundry at her house, according to court documents.

Clemmons has a violent, erratic past, and authorities in Washington state and Arkansas -- where then-Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2000 commuted his 108-year prison sentence for armed robbery and other offenses -- are facing tough questions about why an apparently violent and deranged man was out on the street.

On Sunday, six days after posting bail in Washington on charges of raping a child, Clemmons walked into the coffee shop and killed four uniformed Lakewood police officers as they caught up on paperwork on their laptops, police said.

Court documents say police first suspected Clemmons after finding an abandoned pickup truck registered to a business address of his. A truck matching that description was seen fleeing the ambush scene by the baristas who witnessed the start of the attack.

"The only motive that we have is he decided he was going to go kill police officers," Troyer said. Investigators also reported that Clemmons told others the night before the shooting that he was going to kill police and they should watch the news, but they wrote it off as "crazy-talk."

In a statement posted on the conservative Newsmax.com Web site, Huckabee said: "I take full responsibility for my actions of nine years ago. I acted on the facts presented to me in 2000. If I could have possibly known what Clemmons would do nine years later, I obviously would have made a different decision. But if the same file was presented to me today, I would have likely made the same decision."

Kelly, the 39-year-old Seattle patrol officer who killed Clemmons, is a seven-year law enforcement veteran. He was placed on leave, which is standard procedure after a shooting.

The officer was driving in a south Seattle neighborhood at about 2:45 a.m. Tuesday when he came across the stolen car, Pugel said.

As he sat in his cruiser, beginning paperwork on the car, he sensed movement, turned and saw someone approaching, Pugel said. The officer stepped out and immediately recognized the man, whose face had been all over TV and mugshot fliers memorized by every officer in the region.

The patrolman ordered Clemmons to freeze and show his hands, but he kept moving, and the officer fired several rounds, hitting the man at least twice, Pugel said.

Police said Clemmons would have died eventually of the gunshot wound he suffered at the coffee shop.

At the time of his arrest in Washington state earlier this year, investigators said Clemmons had visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the world was on the verge of the apocalypse.

He also told the officer that President Obama and LeBron James are his brothers and Oprah Winfrey is his sister, and referred to himself as "the beast," according to court papers obtained by The News Tribune of Tacoma.

A psychological evaluation in October found he was a risk to public safety, but not enough of one to justify committing him, the newspaper reported.

[Associated Press; By GENE JOHNSON]

Contributing to this report were Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Curt Woodward in Tacoma, Donna Blankinship, Manuel Valdes and George Tibbits in Seattle, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Ark., and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York.

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