Good afternoon, Netizens…

(Picture: AP Photo of Officers moving into position to stand watch at the caskets of four slain Lakewood police officers before a memorial service Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009, at the Tacoma Dome.)

I spent the bulk of the afternoon watching the memorial services live from the Tacoma Dome for the four fallen Lakewood Police Officers which was broadcast in its entirety live by KOMO-TV.

When you called for help, from the very depths of your frightened souls, they came.

They were fathers, mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters and yet, for a moment in time, they ceased being all of these and came to you came serving as the only defense for the defenseless, the only protection for those who have none, called to duty and always answering the call. 

This afternoon, four young people, police officers of the Lakewood Police Department, were honored and remembered in the biggest memorial service of its kind seen before in Washington State.

They are:

Mark Renninger

Tina Griswold

Ronald Owens

Greg Richards

Gone but not forgotten.

Words cannot express the sorrow we must feel at the loss of their lives, taken from us while serving us all. 

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

This AP Photo of Maurice Clemmons in his jail suit does him no justice. Prior to two nights ago, Clemmons was listed by the Lakewood Police Department as a “person of interest” in four murders. Overnight, however, he became listed as the prime suspect being sought in the calloused murder of four Lakewood Police Officers shot while they were sitting in the Forza Coffee Shop in Western Washington.

A marathon search began, with police jurisdictions in various parts of the State of Washington actively looking for Clemmons, whom they suspected was either injured or dead from his exchange of gunfire with the Lakewood officers. His relatives apparently rendered him assistance during his short run from the law, and at least three people have been arrested for rendering assistance to a fugitive.

However, according to Seattle Police Department Clemmons was finally cornered early this morning in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street and killed there by Seattle police at about 2:40 a.m. Tuesday, Pierce County Sheriff’s Det. Ed Troyer said.

In life as in death, Maurice Clemmons was a poster child for criminal and aberrant behavior, having been charged with assaulting a police officer, rape of a child and of course, the shootings of the four Lakewood police officers. Not to mention his incarceration in Arkansas, which was then commuted by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee. When Seattle Police shot him last night, he was going for a gun stolen from the Lakewood Police Department.

His death brings his criminal spree to a close, but it does little for the spouses and children of the four officers in Lakewood.

(Portions of this post attributed to Seattle Times, KREM-2 TV, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Portland Oregonian)

Dave