I've been away from the keyboard for awhile. I've been busy with work, the holidays, getting ready for Olivia and June to start pre-school, getting our cursed van fixed again, and other mundane every-day sort of general life stuff.Much like Sgt. Mark Renninger and Officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold, and Greg Richards of the Lakewood, Washington, Police Department were on the morning of November 29, 2009, when they gathered at a local coffee shop to catch up on paperwork before their shift began.
While they were working on their laptops, Maurice Clemmons walked in. Clemmons, who had talked the night before about killing police and then watching the news on TV, executed all four officers. No one else in the coffee shop was targeted. These officers had done nothing to Clemmons. He murdered them, it appears, simply because he knew that police officers frequented that coffee shop, and they were the unfortunate ones wearing badges on their chests when he showed up.
One of the mortally wounded officers managed to shoot Clemmons in the torso before dying, but Clemmons survived, and a two-day manhunt ensued, with Clemmons receiving help from friends and family with his wound and in fleeing from law enforcement.
The search ended this morning when a Seattle police officer shot Clemmons to death.
Clemmons has a violent and twisted criminal history in Washington and in Arkansas, and many questions are being raised as to why he was on the street to begin with, given his behavior and mental illness. Mike Huckabee is probably a little warm under the collar right now, having commuted a 108-year prison sentence for Clemmons while Huckabee was governor of Arkansas. Fingers are also being pointed at the Washington judicial system for allowing Clemmons to be released on bond earlier this year, pending charges of assaulting a police officer and raping a child.
I have been following this story closely since it broke on Sunday. I never like hearing about police officers being killed, especially given my staunch support of the police, so when I heard that four officers were killed in the state in which I grew up, I was alarmed. When I learned that they were executed in a coffee shop while doing paperwork, and not while responding to some sort of 911 call, I was appalled. Horrified. Outraged. Enraged. Grief-stricken.
Some will label me as dramatic, but the best way I can process this whole thing is to write.
Taking their professions out of the equation, four innocent human beings were murdered in cold blood. Right at the start of the holiday season. Combined, they are survived by NINE children and three spouses. Add to that the devastation felt by their family, friends, coworkers, and colleagues. It's incomprehensible. I can't find the words to express the sadness I feel for all of those people who were directly impacted by what happened.
I am a probation officer. I am not a police officer, nor do I do all the things that a police officer does. I cannot profess to fully understand what it's like to be a police officer. But our professions have a lot of similarities. We deal with a lot of the same people. We conduct home visits, thus subjecting ourselves to some of the same risks that police officers take with their own lives on a daily basis. We use a lot of the same equipment that police officers do. In our department, we work closely with local law enforcement, helping each other perform our duties. While we do not wear uniforms like police officers do, we definitely stand out in a crowd when we have all our gear on.We also take breaks in places like coffee shops to do things like catch up on paperwork.
I am well aware of the risks involved in my career choice, and while I take every precaution I can--down to wearing a St. Michael pendant around my neck--the thought is always in the back of my head on every home visit that I might die. More probation officers than I care to count have been killed in the line of duty. What hadn't been a real prominent thought--until Sunday--was that I could be ambushed and murdered while sipping a cup of coffee with coworkers and catching up on my notes in a restaurant, simply for being a probation officer. That's a little unnerving.
I'll leave all the finger-pointing about how Clemmons' Arkansas and Washington criminal cases were handled to others. There are constructive reasons to re-evaluate how those situations were handled, but I suspect that not all of the armchair quarterbacking will be constructive over the next few weeks, months, or years. That's human nature, I suppose. Especially grieving human nature. I have learned in my somewhere-close-to 16 years of working in the judicial system that anything is possible. Just because a person is sentenced to x-number of years in prison doesn't mean that the person is going to be behind bars for x-number of years. So I'm not surprised at all by what happened in Arkansas or in Washington on Clemmons' previous cases.
It's easy to sit back and criticize decisions that were made in the past when something catastrophic like this happens, and to cry out that this guy shouldn't have been out of prison to begin with. But authorities in Arkansas and Washington were working within the boundaries of our established adversarial criminal justice system. They were making what they thought were the best decisions at the time. I haven't heard any fact-based accusations of incompetence or negligence in either state, relating to how Clemmons was handled. For several years, until Sunday, no one cared that Mike Huckabee commuted Maurice Clemmons' sentence in Arkansas. Re-evaluate how Clemmons was handled so that the system can be fine-tuned, but beyond that, I don't think anyone involved in the decision-making processes in Arkansas or Washington needs any help in feeling badly for what has happened now.
To Clemmons' family and friends who helped him elude capture for two days after his brutal crime: I hope you all go to prison knowing that you played a large role in Clemmons being shot to death on a Seattle street. If Chuck or my sister had come to me, suffering from a serious gunshot wound to the torso after murdering four police officers, I would have taken them to the hospital. What do you think the chances are of the police killing your loved one while he's lying in a hospital bed, post-surgery?
I'm also thinking of the Seattle officer who killed Clemmons. While he is undoubtedly a hero among the ranks--and I'm certainly not going to argue with that--he was still forced to take a human life. Clemmons was carrying the firearm of one of the deceased Lakewood officers and refusing to obey the Seattle officer's commands when the officer had to open fire. But still, I imagine that he's going to be dealing with that for awhile.
And anytime anything like this happens, I immediately think of my friends who are police officers, and I worry about their safety. I don't like that feeling, either.
The events in Washington happened far far away from me and involved people I've never met who were and are in a profession to which I do not belong. Nonetheless, the ripple effect from what happened in the Seattle area from Sunday through this morning has made it all the way out here to Indiana. And, likely, beyond.
My heart goes out to Sgt. Renninger and Officers Owens, Griswold, and Richards, and to all who knew and loved them.
God bless you, Eric - you put that so profoundly!! It truely hits home for us who have Police Officers in the family. They have been my heros since I looked up to my father when I was old enough to know what he does for a living.
ReplyDeleteI had the honor of attending the memorial for our own Skagit County Deputy who was killed last year - hundreds upon hundreds of people - family, law enforcement officers and just strangers to everyone who was killed on that day - I was very touched by all the support and love that was pouring from that football field. To give everyone "in blue" a hug at the memorial at the S.O., candle light services - to say "Thank you for all you have ever done, all you will ever do" was, I could tell, very meaningful to each and every one.
May every law enforcement officer know how much they are appricated, no matter what a horrific day they had that day. They have always been and forever will be my heros!!!
As a friend to many and a relative to a few police officers let me weigh in on this one. My gym at times looks like a police substation. I have officers from the city police, county sheriff's department, and state police as members of my gym. Each of them given a well deserved discount out of appreciation for there service to our community and to recognize what i believe is woefully inadequate pay for the job that they do. To be clear, i'm not speaking for them as they are quite capable of speaking for themselves. I'm simply speaking for myself. I am saddened for the friends and families of these officers and will find a way to make a contribution to those families and challenge all those that read this to do the same. The kids of those officers deserve the help in my most humble opinion. I am outraged at the actions of that beast and all those who aided him. I know the officer that ended the beast's life must have very conflicted feelings. I'll just say that we are all better off without the beast breathing or should i say without the beast having the opportunity to inflict more damage on innocent people in his community. I have been terribly frustrated to hear of crimes like this being committed by individuals that have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms being released early for whatever the reason. I am familiar with the legal system and i wonder what good it does for the court to do a pre-sentence investigation, allow the victim's families and friends to speak, and a judge who has weighed the evidence, considered the threat to the community of the offender, and invokes the wisdom of his/her experience to determine a sentence ONLY TO HAVE THE SENTENCE MODIFIED, OVERTURNED, OR COMMUTED by an individual or group of individuals that are relying on transcripts and/or reports that cannot possibly reflect the maliciousness of the crime or the offender's threat to the community. Perhaps a bit more trust and faith could be placed in those judges' decisions!!!!!! I could go on, but the more i write the angrier i get. Don
ReplyDeleteTo donate to the memorial funds of these fallen officers, go here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lpig.us/
Kathy, thank you very much for your compliments and your support of law enforcement.
Don, you illustrated my point perfectly. The system needs to be examined in the wake of this tragedy to determine, among other things, if governors of states should have the ability to commute sentences when, as you pointed out, they are relying only on transcripts. While I was not surprised that Clemmons' sentence was commuted, it doesn't make me any less angry about it. I absolutely understand and share in your outrage. My point was to refrain from singling out the INDIVIDUALS who made the decisions in Arkansas and Washington, as they were playing within the rules of the system and making what they thought was the best decision at the time. I'm all for re-examining the SYSTEM in an effort to keep a 108-year prison sentence from being commuted in the future.
And if I could fly out to Seattle and shake that officer's hand, I would.