SEATTLE - Community members gathered Tuesday night for a vigil in Lakewood to honor four officers slain in a local coffee shop. A public memorial was also scheduled for December 8 at the Tacoma Dome. More than 20,000 law enforcement officers were expected to attend.
Four men and two women were arrested since Tuesday, accused of helping Maurice Clemmons get away after killing four Lakewood police officers Sunday.
Police say they acted as getaway drivers and helped treat Clemmons' gunshot wound.
A Seattle police officer shot Clemmons to death Tuesday morning.
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.
Maurice Clemmons was shot to death in a working-class, south Seattle neighborhood after police tracked him down by searching possible hiding spots supplied by Pierce County investigators, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the county sheriff.
Authorities say Clemmons, 37, killed the four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop Sunday morning in Parkland, a Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle.
Lakewood police Officer Greg Richards was the one who fought with and wounded Clemmons.
Allen was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a 1990 double murder at a Little Rock liquor store. He was paroled in 2004.Troyer says Allen will be charged on Wednesday in connection with Sunday's police shooting in a suburban coffee shop.
Psych evaluation: Clemmons risk to public
A psychological evaluation of Maurice Clemmons in October found that he was a risk to public safety. But two psychologists said in October they didn't have enough reason to commit the man who later killed four Lakewood police officers.
The report was ordered by a Pierce County Superior Court to determine whether Clemmons was competent to stand trial on rape and assault charges.
On Nov. 6. Judge Kitty-Ann van Doorninck found Clemmons competent for trial and later ordered Western State Hospital to determine if he was insane at the time of the rape and assault.
After his arrest in May in the assault case he threatened to kill jail staff, according to The News Tribune of Tacoma.
Suspect spotted near stolen car
The Tuesday morning confrontation that led to the suspect's death took place at about 2:40 a.m. in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street in the Rainier Valley neighborhood, Troyer said. At a news conference, police said a patrol car had come upon a car that was reported stolen. An officer observed some movement near the car and recognized the suspect as Clemmons.
"(The officer) says he recognized the person who was approaching him as to be looking or appeared to be just like the person who has been broadcast as the possible suspect in the tragic homicide in Lakewood," said Assistant Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel.
The officer ordered the person to stop. The suspect began to run. The officer fired several rounds, hitting the suspect. The suspect was dead at the scene. Police say the suspect was armed with a gun taken from one of the slain Lakewood Police officers.
Police were talking to people who saw or heard the confrontation.
One of the witnesses said she was awoken by noise outside her home.
"It sounded like pops, like gunshots is what we thought," she said. "We saw cops coming, running with guns drawn through here, with a couple of guys with the SWAT shields."
At the scene, a couple of dozen police officers milled around, shaking hands and patting each other on the back after one of the largest manhunts in the region's history.
Clemmons had a serious gunshot wound from one of the four officers killed in the coffee-shop shooting.
Other 'partners in crime' to be arrested
Police planned to arrest more people who helped Clemmons.
"We expect to have maybe six or seven people in custody by the day's end," Troyer said. "Some are friends, some are acquaintances, some are partners in crime, some are relatives. Now they're all partners in crime."
Troyer didn't immediately give the names of the four people already arrested on suspicion of rendering criminal assistance. On Monday, officers detained a sister of Clemmons who they think treated the suspect's gunshot wound.
"We believe she drove him up to Seattle and bandaged him up," Troyer said.
Clemmons had stayed on the run for nearly two days with help from a network of friends and family who gave him places to stay, medical aid, rides and money, police said. Troyer told Fox News police arrested three people overnight on suspicion of rendering criminal assistance.
Police believe people close to Clemmons have misled officers, and Troyer said anyone helping him could face charges. Clemmons' sister wasn't in custody late Monday and her name wasn't released.
Investigators: Clemmons singled out Lakewood officers
Authorities said the gunman singled out the Lakewood officers and spared employees and other customers at the coffee shop. He then fled, but not before he was apparently shot in the torso by one of the dying officers.
Killed were Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42.
Troyer told the Tacoma News-Tribune that Clemmons indicated the night before the shooting "that he was going to shoot police and watch the news."
Police surrounded a house in a Seattle neighborhood late Sunday following a tip Clemmons had been dropped off there. After an all-night siege, a SWAT team entered the home and found it empty. But police said Clemmons had been there.
Police frantically chased leads on Monday, searching multiple spots in the Seattle and Tacoma area and at one point cordoning off a park where people thought they saw Clemmons.
Authorities found a handgun carried by the killer, along with a pickup truck belonging to the suspect with blood stains inside. They posted a $125,000 reward for information leading to Clemmons' arrest and alerted hospitals to be on the lookout for a man seeking treatment for gunshot wounds.
"We need to get him into custody and we need to end this," Troyer said Monday night.
A prison commutation from a former presidential candidate
Authorities in two states were criticized amid revelations that Clemmons was allowed to walk the streets despite a teenage crime spree in Arkansas that landed him an 108-year prison sentence. He was released early after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his sentence.
Huckabee cited Clemmons' youth in granting the request. But Clemmons quickly reverted to his criminal past, violated his parole and was returned to prison. He was released again in 2004.
"This guy should have never been on the street," said Brian D. Wurts, president of the police union in Lakewood. "Our elected officials need to find out why these people are out."
Huckabee said on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday night that Clemmons was allowed back on the street because prosecutors failed to file paperwork in time.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, whose office opposed Clemmons' parole in 2000 and 2004, said Huckabee's comments were "red herrings."
"My word to Mr. Huckabee is man up and own what you did," Jegley said.
Clemmons charged with raping child, police assault in Wash.
Clemmons was charged in Washington state earlier this year with assaulting a police officer and raping a child, and investigators in the sex case said he was motivated by visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the world was on the verge of the apocalypse.
But he was released from jail after posting bail with the assistance of Jail Sucks Bail Bonds.
Documents related to those charges indicate a volatile personality. In one instance, he is accused of gathering his wife and young relatives and forcing them to undress.
"The whole time Clemmons kept saying things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was Jesus," a Pierce County sheriff's report said.
