On November 29th, 2009, four Lakewood Police Department officers were gunned down in a coffee shop near Tacoma, WA. Often the act of a mad man is so heinous that it makes us want to point blame irrationally, but in this case there are people at fault and laws should be changed to ensure that this never happens again.
In 1990, Maurice Clemmons was convicted and sentenced to 108 years in prison. After serving 10 years, then Arkansas governor Huckabee commuted his sentence to 47 years. This allowed an Arkansas Parole Board to release him on parole in July of 2000.
In 2001, Clemmons, violated his parole by committing aggravated robbery and was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. If you’ve lost track this should have him going back to jail to finish his 47 year term plus another 10 for his latest crime, but Arkansas judicial system ignored the parole violation and after only 4 years he was once again paroled.
He moved to Washington and placed under the supervision of the Washington State Department of Corrections. In May of 2009, there was a bench warrant issued when he escaped police after having raped his 12 year old female relative. In July, he was finally arrested. Arkansas did not request extradition which would have put him behind bars for 57 years. On November 23, 2009 Clemmons paid $15,000 for a $190,000 bail bond and was released. Less than a week later he murdered officers Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards, 42.
Who’s to blame: Maurice Clemmons and Arkansas Correctional for being plain lazy.
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