Seattle, Washington (CNN) — A suspect in the shooting deaths of four police officers was not found in an east Seattle home where authorities had tracked him, police said Monday.
Following a standoff that stretched to nearly 12 hours, Maurice Clemmons was not found in the home in the Leschi neighborhood, Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel told reporters. There is evidence that Clemmons was outside the home Sunday night, but apparently fled the area, he said.
Clemmons is sought in connection with what police called an “ambush” Sunday morning at a coffee shop near Tacoma in Pierce County. Four Lakewood police officers — three men and a woman — were shot to death.
Authorities identified the victims as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Officer Ronald Owens, 37; Officer Tina Griswold, 40; and Officer Greg Richards, 42. All four had been with the department since its inception, and all of them were parents.
Authorities were summoned to the Leschi area about 8:45 p.m. Sunday after a tip that Clemmons was dropped off in the area, Kappel said. Police surrounded the home, blocked off the streets, and asked residents to lock their doors and stay inside. Paramedics were on standby to treat Clemmons, because witnesses to the shooting told police he was shot in the leg during the incident.
Police searched homes in the Leschi neighborhood, and believed Clemmons was holed up in the final residence they got to, Kappel said. Numerous attempts to raise him using a bullhorn and various noise devices were unsuccessful.
A robot was deployed to survey and scan, and a partial entry was made into the house with no response, he said. A SWAT team moved in and cleared the residence, but Clemmons was not found, Kappel said.
About an hour later, an alert was sent to students at the University of Washington, telling them to be alert, as the suspect could be in the university area and police were responding there, said university spokesman Robert Roseth. The university is located in east Seattle.
Early Monday, authorities started identifying Clemmons as a suspect, rather than as someone wanted for questioning.
Police were not looking for anyone else, but had arrested several people who had “helped” Clemmons, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.
The night before the shootings, Clemmons had threatened to kill police officers, but witnesses did not report those threats till after the slayings, Troyer told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Clemmons, 37, is a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet.
He was recently charged in Pierce County in an assault on a police officer and rape of a child, according to a statement from the sheriff’s department.
Clemmons was given a 95-year prison sentence in Arkansas in 1989 for a host of charges, including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school.
His sentence was commuted in 2000 by then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said Troyer.
Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, is considering a run for president in 2012.
“Should [Clemmons] be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state,” Huckabee’s office said in a statement Sunday night.
Huckabee cited Clemmons’ young age — 17 at the time of his sentencing — when he announced his decision to commute the sentence, according to newspaper articles.
“It was not something I was pleased with at the time,” said Larry Jegley, who prosecuted Clemmons for aggravated robbery and other charges in Pulaski County, Arkansas. “I would be most distressed if this is the same guy.”
Huckabee’s office said Clemmons’ commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release.
“He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him,” the statement said.
CNN could not immediately confirm the account. But the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper reported that a year after his release, Clemmons was arrested for aggravated robbery and theft.
He was taken back to prison for parole violation. But, said the paper, he was not served with the arrest warrants for the robbery and theft charges until he left prison three years later, in 2004.
His attorney argued the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed by then. Prosecutors dropped the charges.
Clemmons is thought to have moved to Washington that year, and for a while ran a pressure-washing and landscaping business. The license for the business expired last month, according to the secretary of state’s office, with which businesses have to register.
In recent months, Clemmons has displayed increasingly erratic behavior, the Seattle Times reported. In May, he punched a sheriff’s deputy in the face, the paper said.
In another incident, he had relatives undress, telling them families need to be “naked for at least five minutes on Sunday,” the newspaper said, citing a sheriff’s department incident report.
Clemmons also believed he was Jesus and could fly, a deputy wrote, based on conversations with family members.
After serving several months in jail on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child, Clemmons was released on bond six days ago, according to the Seattle Times.
Sunday’s shooting was the first for the Lakewood police department, which was created five years ago for the town of nearly 60,000. Until then, the Pierce County sheriff’s office provided law enforcement services there.
The four officers were awaiting the start of their shift at a coffee shop that’s a popular hangout for law enforcement officers. They were in uniform and had marked patrol cars parked outside. The shop is in Parkland, an unincorporated community just south of Lakewood and about 10 miles from Tacoma.
The attack occurred without warning. The shooter walked past the officers to the counter as if to order coffee before he pulled the gun out of his coat and opened fire at 8:15 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.
Two of the officers were “executed” as they sat at a table, said Troyer, the sheriff’s spokesman. Another was shot when he stood up and the fourth was shot after struggling with the gunman all the way out the door, Troyer said.
Two baristas and other customers inside the shop were unharmed. “Just the law enforcement officers were targeted,” Troyer said, calling the shooting an ambush.
“There’s not going to be a big motive other than he was upset about being incarcerated and was going to go gunning after cops in general,” Troyer told reporters on Monday.
CNN’s Patrick Oppmann, Peter Hamby, Samira Simone, Dave Alsup and Dina Majoli contributed to this report.
