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Lawmakers plan hearing on officer slayings
Posted
at
11:05 am
by Jerry Cornfield
Hearings will be held and laws could change next year when state lawmakers examine why the man accused of gunning down four Lakewood police officers had been free on bail given his long criminal history.
That man, Maurice Clemmons, was shot and killed today by a Seattle police officer.
Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw, who is chairman of the House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee, said Monday that the panel will hold a hearing early in the 2010 session.
He said lawmakers need to understand why Clemmons was walking free and whether his release could have been prevented with different policies and practices by the state.
“This is not acceptable and the Legislature needs to take a look at this. I'm expecting we'll have a very thorough briefing,” Hurst said in a phone interview. “There may be some easy answers. There may be some very complicated answers.”
Rep. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, the committee's ranking minority member, said Monday that “it would be a good work session to have.”Hurst's press release begins here:
Chairman Hurst calls for hearing and investigation
OLYMPIA -- State Representative Christopher Hurst, Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee, with jurisdiction over criminal justice issues, announced today that he will hold a public hearing and investigation into the deaths of four Lakewood police officers on November 29th, 2009.
“This is a horrible and heinous act, and my heart goes out to the families of the murdered police officers and to the public and communities that have been affected,” said Hurst, himself a former undercover detective, commander of a homicide task force and a 25-year police veteran. “The protection of the citizens of Washington state is the highest priority of government, and without safety, no other priorities in society can be achieved.”
The prime suspect in this case had a 95-year prison sentence commuted in Arkansas and was facing multiple felony charges in Washington state.
“Considering his extraordinary history of violent criminal activity in multiple states,” Hurst said, “it's difficult to conceive of how this person was even free in the first place to have an opportunity to commit a crime like this. Something in the system clearly failed.”
“This is doubly tragic coming so soon after the murder of a Seattle police officer,” Hurst said. “The apparently random nature of these senseless killings should cause us to ask some deeper questions.”
Although the first order of business is the apprehension of the suspect in this case and caring for the family members of the murdered police officers, as well as the healing of the community they served, the Legislature must be resolved to take every possible action and leave no stone unturned in their resolution to see that an event like this never happens again.
Hurst went on to say, “The apprehension of the suspect is not enough. If in fact Maurice Clemmons does indeed turn out to be the individual responsible, as has been alleged, there needs to be answers and accountability for how a crime like this happened in the first place at the hands of such a well-known and notorious criminal.”
“Once the individual responsible is in handcuffs and behind bars, we need to take a hard look at how and why this tragedy happened,” Hurst said.
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