One Department

by Thomas A. Young

  Randy was more right about that than he had dared to think. The next time someone came calling on the law happened one month later on November 29th.

  * * *

  Lakewood, Washington was on the south side of Tacoma. Inside a Forza coffee shop in a strip mall here, four Lakewood officers were starting their morning when a man named Maurice Clemmons walked in.

  Three of the officers sat at a table by the window while a fourth stood at the counter deciding on what he was going to order. Tina Griswold was working an extra shift to make some money for Christmas. Ronald Owens was working on his laptop, as was Mark Renninger, who was a SWAT team instructor. The one standing at the counter was Greg Richards.

  Maurice Clemmons was a 240 pound black man who had come there for a reason, and he didn’t waste a lot of time getting down to business. After standing in line briefly, he pulled a Glock 9mm, faced the three cops at the table and shot Tina Griswold in the back of the head. As the baristas behind the counter bolted out the back, his second shot hit Mark Renninger in the temple. When he tried to shoot Ronald Owens however, his pistol jammed. He discarded it and pulled his second weapon, a .38 caliber revolver. During that time Officer Owens was able to jump to his feet and charge the attacker. They grappled as Clemmons continued to fire, and one of those rounds hit Owens in the head. He was the third one killed.

  That’s when Greg Richards slammed into Clemmons and began his own grappling match. It was close. He knocked away Clemmons’s revolver and drew his own .40 caliber Glock to shoot him. The two of them fought their way toward the front door, fighting for possession of the pistol, and during the fight it went off twice. One of the shots hit Clemmons in the back. The second one hit Officer Richards in the head.

  Clemmons made his escape with the help of an accomplice who drove his truck for him. Less than twenty minutes after the first 911 call was made, word went out that all four officers had been killed.

  * * *

  Randy, Elena and Vincent sat at the bar at Bourbon Street, fixed on the television. It was Sunday night and the place was pretty empty, which gave Alicia time to stand behind the bar and watch the scene with them.

  If the Monfort shooting had been a regular bomb dropped on the state, this was a bona fide truck bomb. The manhunt for Clemmons was among the most massive that there ever was, and according to the news the police had just gotten a huge tip. Clemmons had gone to the home of an aunt, who after failing to persuade him not to go there, had told police he was coming. Now, as they all watched on the television, the house was surrounded and police were pouring tear gas canisters into the home. No one knew it at the time, but in the morning they would discover that Clemmons had bolted out the back immediately after being seen entering the front.

  The door of the tavern opened and Officer Jack Hayward walked in followed by Preston and Zack. The first thing they did on entering was to scan the whole place. They wore the same kind of expressions one expects to see on a character in a zombie movie, where the next monster could come out of any dark corner.

  They walked to the bar where Alicia was standing. “Frank around?” Hayward asked her. She replied that he was off that night. “Well, let him know we found a stolen car in your lot.” Then the officers looked at the screen and saw what they were watching.

  “They’ve got him in that house, right?” Elena asked.

  “It appears that way,” Hayward replied without really looking at her, and the three of them turned and walked toward the door.

  “I hope it’s all over,” Elena said. Hayward and the younger Zachary both managed only a courteous nod, but Preston said a real thank-you to her before they went out the door.

  Randy and Vincent both turned their eyes toward Elena. It was a little surprising to hear her talk like that to those men. “Under the circumstances I don’t think that was out of line,” she said.

  “Me either,” Randy replied. “This is a bad deal. And I don’t think it is over.”

  “Why you say that?” Vincent asked. “This Clemmons guy isn’t the same as Monfort was. This guy really is a scumbag.”

  “He might not have done this for the same reason as Monfort. But the important question is, did he get his inspiration from Monfort?”

  No one knew the answer to that, and it would remain a tough question. Subsequent news stories would reveal that Clemmons had talked about killing police officers as far back as May of that year, well before Monfort’s attacks. He had also made a couple of failed attempts to attack a police station, but both of them had been after the Monfort attacks. One of those times the police station was closed, the other time he got a flat tire on the way there.

  Clemmons had also told his family he considered shooting up a school, or shooting people at random in public, so his murderous intent wasn’t limited only to police. Clemmons had a lot more against him too, such as a charge for having sex with a 12-year-old girl. If convicted it was going to be his third strike.

  But for quite some time, Clemmons’s home had been under surveillance. They weren’t discrete about it either, the Seattle police frequently kept a car parked on the street right at his home. Perhaps they realized it, and perhaps they didn’t, but what this says to a person is, “We’re out to get you.” And what that causes the subject of all this attention to think is, “In that case, just maybe I’m out to get you too.”

  So it could be that this attack was going to happen anyways, and it could also be that Clemmons saw the news of Monfort’s attack and finally made the decision that for him, that was the way to go. That’s how the copycat effect works.

  Only a day later, Clemmons was found by a Seattle cop and killed before anyone had the chance to ask him. But the next time Randy would ask that question would be three weeks later.

  * * *

  It was four days before Christmas in 2009. David Crable was a bulky man who had ongoing family feuds with his brother, mother and daughter all at once. He had drug and alcohol problems that fueled the conflicts, but still they sometimes got along okay. At various times in the past, pretty much everyone in the family had filed restraining orders against one another.

  On this night, David was drunk and out of control again. His 16-year-old daughter Byrona was in the upstairs bedroom. David’s brother Jason called the Sheriff’s Department to ask them to remove David from the home. Two deputies responded, Sergeant Nick Hauser and Deputy Kent Mundell.

  They were invited inside, and things seemed to be going well enough. The deputies offered David a ride elsewhere and he agreed. He went upstairs to grab a few clothes while the deputies waited at the bottom of the stairs.

  David came back to the stairs with a bundle of clothes in his arm. Then he reached inside of the clothes, pulled out a pistol and opened up on them. Both officers were hit in the first burst. Nick Hauser went down, but Kent Mundell was able to draw and return fire. He shot David several times, but then David shot him again as well. At that point his daughter Byrona jumped on her father and dragged him to the floor, possibly keeping him from shooting the officers any more. Then while Jason and his girlfriend gave first aid to Hauser, Byrona ran to a neighbor’s house to call for help.

  Nick Hauser survived and was released just a few days later. Kent Mundell hung on for seven days and then died. In a six-week period, there had now been eight Washington State police officers shot, with six fatalities.

  * * *

  After the first reports came out, the question on Randy’s mind again was where Crable had gotten the idea. Were Monfort and Clemmons part of his inspiration, or would he have come up with this on his own? Much was made of the fact that Crable had nothing to gain by attacking. He was only being asked to leave, and was even being given a ride home.

  Randy’s question was answered only a couple days after the shooting when some more detailed news reports told of how David Crable had been arrested earlier that month in the midst of another quarrel with his family. Crable had just driven to his home, where deputies were waiting, and he su
ddenly found multiple guns drawn on him. He was dragged out, put to the ground, and pretty much put through the whole public humiliation spectacle. None of the news stories speculated on how this made Crable feel, or whether the officers who made that arrest in this fashion might have sown the seeds for what happened later.

  Randy knew exactly how Crable felt however, because he had been there, and he knew how such treatment makes you feel. It makes you feel furious, humiliated, and vengeful. It makes your thoughts run in the direction of maybe these sons of bitches really do have it coming. For such arrests to be committed needlessly at a time when retaliation is becoming a trend could be called “very ill-considered.”

  Randy considered the context in which all of this had happened, and he was pretty confident that he knew exactly where David Crable had gotten the idea.

  * * *

  It was one week after the shooting committed by Crable, and it was roll call time at the Forest Hill Police Department again. This was a time of day the officers of this department had stopped looking forward to quite a while ago.

  Burt came to the podium and got right to the point. “As most of you are aware, Kent Mundell has passed away.” The small number of gasps in the room indicated that not quite everyone had gotten that memo. “This comes to six officers who have died in the last two months in this state. I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you. People are officially gunning for us, and that means additional safety measures are going to be implemented.”

  “What sort of measures?” Preston asked.

  “For starters, all officers will work in pairs. In all contacts, the backup officer will take an aggressive posture.”

  “You mean hand on the weapon?” Robin inquired.

  “I mean weapon to the back of their head if they’re giving you any grief whatsoever,” Burt replied. “Screwing around time is over.”

  “With respect sir,” Robin said, “if the goal here is officer safety, that might be a little counterproductive. I’ve been reading through some online forums about this and there are a lot of people who are calling these attacks justified on the basis of just that kind of interaction.”

  Burt’s expression was borderline stunned. “And your point is?”

  “My point is that a little more positive interaction might make people less inclined to want to kill us.” The reaction in the room was mixed, but Robin had clearly hit a nerve.

  Burt lowered his glasses and looked down at her like a stepdad with a really big lecture to hand down. “Sergeant Frisk, I don’t know what criminal justice school you went to, but you do not discourage people from doing something by giving them what they want. If there are people talking about what great heroes these cop killers are, do you really think the solution is for us to make nice with them? They’re the ones who are going to start seeing things our way, get it?” Burt was close to seething by this point. “So either get on the right side of this issue, or go climb back on your mudflap!” That last line elicited hoots and cheers from several of the men in the room, most prominently Jack Hayward. Robin stayed composed, but her cheeks burned.

  Burt returned to his planned curriculum, which centered around how these shootings justified their treating normal encounters as possible threats, and how the presence of a weapon justified any means needed to secure the safety of the officers involved. He wrapped up the meeting, and as everyone started filing out of the lunch room, Hayward walked over to Robin. “Hey Robin,” he said, “you do a great job running the gym, and it’s great that you made Sergeant. But don’t kid yourself, you’re here to dress the window. When we need advice on perfect abs we’ll come to you, but leave the PR policy to people who know what the hell they’re talking about.”

  Nearby, Preston overheard. He didn’t like what he was hearing so he stepped over to butt in. “Speaking of the gym, Jack, isn’t it about time for your bi-annual one-minute session in the ring? I’d be happy to give you some work. You bring the heart pills, I’ll bring the school.”

  Hayward cracked a smile, but he had to force it. “Careful what you wish for,” he said, and he headed out the door.

  “Wanna partner up?” Preston asked Robin.

  “Love to.”

  * * *

  The string of shootings of law enforcement officers wasn’t quite over, but in this shooting string at least, the deaths were. There would be one more case of a cop being targeted in February of 2010 on Long Beach, the very place where Randy and Elena took their honeymoon, but he would live. In that instance, a man was angered over the fact that his wife’s car was being inventoried for towing (i.e. ransacked in public using “inventory” as a pretext for a warrantless search) after she had been arrested for d.u.i. That man had shot the cop in the head from behind with a .25 caliber pistol. The bullet was deflected by his skull enough to save him, though he would have some lifelong problems as a result. After that, the string of targeted attacks had ended.

  That was extremely fortunate, because a lot of eyes were on the Western part of Washington State, where the shooting trend had been localized. It was critical that the trend stayed localized, because when physical borders are crossed, psychological borders are crossed as well. If any such targeted attacks had taken place outside of Washington during this time, it would officially have become a national trend, and there might well have been no stopping it from there.

  But when the trend had run its course, the general reaction by law enforcement was to change nothing. There were even a number of news stories that described how they had made it a point not to change their policies one way or the other. Publicly, law enforcement was determined not to give any satisfaction to those who saw this as a popular uprising.

  And privately, there were some people in law enforcement who wanted to take it even further.

  * * *

  Randy wasn’t without sympathy for what was happening, but at the same time he had a wife to take care of, and he didn’t care much for the way that he and she had been targeted for special attention. The traffic stops, the rousts, and the frequent slow cruises down the roads near their home were a problem that had to be dealt with before things got out of control.

  Most people in that kind of situation, who don’t have solid grounds for a lawsuit, file some complaints that get swept under the mat and then give up. Randy filed the complaints like anyone would, with the police department and with the prosecutor, but he was able to do a little better than the average complainant as well. Randy knew the secret of dealing with public officials. They may not have a reason in the world to care what you think, but there are people whose opinions do matter to them, and those are the people you have to talk to.

  Helping him out was a Washington State Supreme Court decision called State V. Flora. That decision spelled out the fact that it is legal to record police in the course of official business, and you don’t have to notify them of the recording. Randy had been making extensive use of that decision, recording every encounter that he had with law enforcement, and insisting that Elena do the same. Modern technology made that easy; a quick internet search turned up a ton of spy cameras and recorders to choose from. It also turned up a whole lot of Youtube videos of people putting these things to good use in traffic stops. Randy’s and Elena’s problems with the law were certainly not unique.

  Randy made especially good use of one of those recordings in court. On that tape was an officer trying to coerce a warrantless search of his truck. Underneath the canopy on the back of the truck, the junk was piled a little high. It obstructed the view through the back, which was technically illegal even though there were all sorts of vehicles on the road with no view through the back whatsoever. So the cop said he would have to get out and rearrange everything in his presence, so they could see inside while he was doing it, which of course was only a pretext for a warrantless search. Randy had nothing illegal, but he did have a few cases of rifle and pistol ammo in the back, and he didn’t want this cop getting on the radio and howling THOUSANDS OF ROUND OF AMMO
!!! as he knew the cop would. So he told the cop to go take a flying leap, he’d fix the problem on his own time. Subsequently he was taken out of the truck and handcuffed, then put through the full roust again. He got a ticket for the obstructed windows, but they didn’t get their search.

  When he took the ticket to court, he first questioned the officers involved about whether they intended to obtain a warrantless search, and got their answers on the record that they didn’t. Then he pulled out the recording proving that they had just lied, on the stand and under oath. The cops in that courtroom were some of the unhappiest people he had ever seen.

  He got the ticket dismissed, but the city attorney of course had no interest in charging the cops with either abuse of office or perjury. All was to be swept under the mat again, but not only was Randy ready for that, he was fully prepared to use that fact to clobber the city attorney along with the cops. He made himself an audio compilation proving they had committed perjury and started passing it around. He started with the police department and the sheriff’s department, knowing they would do nothing but also knowing it would ruffle some feathers. Then he took it to the Mayor and city council. He also took it to the county prosecutor, and for good measure, the state attorney general as well. He also passed a copy on to the Gazette. He didn’t get any real satisfaction out of any of the officials, but a strange thing happened after that. Cops started being a lot nicer, to him and Elena both.

  That was how it appeared on the surface anyhow, but underneath some bad blood was simmering. Law enforcement across the state had just taken a real beating. They knew what sort of behavior had led to this string of attacks, but were not about to take any blame. If there’s one thing people in authority are incapable of getting their heads around, it’s the idea of surrendering power, and far from heeding any of the lessons of recent history, they were anxious to reassert theirs.

  When someone took it to them the way Randy just had, it was easy for cops to lump that person into the same category with the people who were firing the live rounds. It reinforced the “us versus them” mentality, and for some cops it even made the typically strained relations between citizen and cop seem like something that was one stage beyond “us versus them.”