Four police officers have been shot dead in an ambush at a coffee shop in Washington State, police say.
Officials said at least one gunman walked into a coffee shop in Parkland, near the McChord Air Force Base, and opened fire.
A sheriff's spokesman said the officers had been targeted and it was not believed to have been a robbery.
Other customers were in the coffee shop at the time but no-one else was injured in the attack.
Parkland is in Pierce County, 40 miles south of Seattle.
Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the officers had been working on their laptops in the coffee shop when the shooting happened on Sunday morning.
"It was just a flat out ambush," he said. "None of the employees or any of the people inside the store were targeted or hit or wounded.
"So we believe this was a cold, calculated killing of four police officers."
First reports said there had been two gunmen but Mr Troyer told the BBC he now believed there was only one.
He said the suspect is a black male in his late 20s or early 30s who was scruffy, wearing a black coat and blue jeans.
Families of the four officers were being informed.
Theron Zahn, of KOMO-TV, told the BBC that a huge police operation involving hundreds of officers was under way.
"Police helicopters are in the air using their infra-red cameras for anyone who may be hiding nearby. It is a massive manhunt."
Police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen.
via BBC News - US police 'shot dead in ambush' in Washington state.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
US police 'shot dead in ambush' in Washington state
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3 comments:
Times are changing ...
There have been some horrific gunfights between police and robbery suspects and the like, but deliberate ambushes to kill police?
In April 1968, Black Panthers deliberately ambushed the police officers to provoke a shoot-out.
On August 7, 1970, Marin County, California, 2 men entered a court room and attempted to liberate their imprisoned Black Panther brother. But that wasn't an ambush.
But, just recently:
April 5, 2009, "Deadly ambush in Stanton Heights claims the lives of 3 city police officers," Michael A. Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
October 31, 2009 Seattle police officer was shot and killed while sitting in his patrol car. The officer was sitting in the passenger seat with a trainee who was injured. - From police website.
And, now this event.
It doesn't seem we, Americans, are a very happy bunch. In other countries, other than Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems police ambushes are rare events.
But, then, I'm not an expert on this sort of stuff.
Update from one those of us not very happy:
Cops 'R' The Greatest Threat
To Life & Limb In The USA Today
By Jim Kirwan
12-2-9
http://rense.com/general88/copsr.htm
Meanwhile, the November 29th cop-killer is killed:
AP, Suspect in Police Shootings Is Dead, Official Says, December 1, 2009
It just so happens that in 2000 Republican (I had to include that) Governor, Michael Dale Huckabee, had commuted not a 5-year, not a 10-year, not even a 50-year, but a 108-year prison sentence the cop-killer serving! Then, only 6 days after posting bail on charges of raping a child, the cop-killer walked into a coffee shop in suburban Tacoma and ... I think this guy was one us who is not very healthy, mentally, but that's only my opinion.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/01/us/AP-US-Officers-Shot.html?_r=2&emc=na
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