Free Republic

EAST PALO ALTO -- Alberto Alvarez should be put to death for murdering an East Palo Alto police officer nearly four years ago, a San Mateo County jury decided Tuesday. The same jury of six men and six women convicted Alvarez, 26, last month of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of murdering a police officer. On Tuesday, the jury chose death for the East Palo Alto resident rather than life in prison without parole. A judge will officially sentence Alvarez on Feb. 2. "It was the verdict we were seeking because of the aggravating factors in the case -...

Note: Photos included. Last updated 8:37 p.m. PT “Monfort, accused cop killer, pleads not guilty” KOMO-TV SNIPPET: “Investigators said DNA evidence found at the scene of Brenton’s slaying and the earlier arson at a police maintenance yard were a match to Monfort. His DNA was found on identical American flag bandannas dropped at both scenes as “calling cards,” according to court documents. In addition, a rifle found in Monfort’s apartment is an identical ballistic match to the weapon used to kill Brenton and wound his partner, Britt Sweeney, according to investigators. Prosecutors accused Monfort of placing bombs at the scene...

The National Black Foot Soldiers, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam, now claims that Maurice Clemmons is a Muslim martyr who has ascended to seventh heaven for killing four Lakewood police officers at the Forza Coffee Shop near the McChord Air Base in Tacoma, Washington. The Black Foot Soldiers also claim that Clemmons, who was gunned down yesterday by a cop in south Seattle neighborhood, is being reward by Allah with a gift of 288 houris (virgins with “dark, beautiful eyes,” “swelling breasts,” and “modest gaze”) as his brides. The houris, we are told, will cater to the sexual...

Parolee held in cop's death Suspect in Penn Hills killings could have served time until February The man charged with killing a Penn Hills police officer was out of prison on parole after serving the minimum of a 21/2- to 5-year sentence for a firearms conviction. Ronald Robinson would have remained in prison until February had he served his maximum sentence for illegally possessing a handgun in 2005. But the state's parole board released him in 2007, determining that "the interests of the commonwealth will not be injured." On Sunday, police said, Mr. Robinson went to a two-story, red-brick home...

The Mike Huckabee body count continues to rise. During his 10 years as Arkansas governor, Huckabee commuted the sentences of 1,033 convicted criminals. He knowingly released more than a few rapists and murderers and sometimes mocked or attacked prosecutors who pleaded with him to keep violent offenders behind bars. While Huckabee was governor, the parole board released convicted rapist Wayne Dumont. Huckabee had publicly argued for Dumont's release, and parole board members said he pressured them to let the rapist out. Eleven months after his release, Dumont raped and killed a woman. In 2000, Huckabee granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons,...

It’s no wonder we haven’t heard this story from the Democrat controlled media, but a new group of anti American Black Muslims calling themselves the National Black Foot Soldiers actually celebrated what they call the BOW Black on White “martyrdom” of Police murderer Maurice Clemmons.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee explains why he commuted the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, suspected of shooting police officers in Washington State before being killed by authorities. (Dec. 1) Huckabee: Why I Commuted (Cop Killer) Clemmons Sentence

The senseless and savage slaying of 4 police officers in Lakewood, Washington has raised many questions as to why the alleged murderer was even on the streets. My name has figured prominently in many of the stories because I commuted his 108 year sentence to a term of 47 years back in 2000. I take full responsibility for my decision then. Unfortunately, many of my fellow conservatives don’t seem to want to take responsibility for the facts surrounding the case. The Maurice Clemmons presented in a commutation request in the year 2000 was much different than the one who is...

Maurice Clemmons, the alleged shooter in the Sunday murder of four Lakewood, Washington police officers, was killed early yesterday morning by a Seattle police officer. The blogsite Fire Andrea Mitchell reported that a Nation of Islam offshoot called National Black Foot Soldiers held a protest today outside the Parkland, Washington coffee shop where the murders occurred. The protesters allegedly gathered to celebrate Clemmons as a "Crowned BOW (Black on White) Martyr," calling his attack a "preemptive strike on terrorists..." The substance of this story was originally announced by a blog called the Last Crusade, which has also claimed that Clemmons...

When Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of killing four Lakewood police officers, walked free from a Pierce County jail last week, it wasn't for lack of effort on the part of Washington officials to keep him behind bars.Documents released Tuesday show that a wide variety of state and local officials — everyone from prosecutors to sheriff's deputies to corrections officers — viewed Clemmons as a dangerous man, and wanted desperately to keep him in custody.But Washington officials encountered resistance from an unlikely source — their correctional colleagues in Arkansas. The acrimony has since become so intense, according to Pierce...

A man police said drove the getaway car for Maurice Clemmons when Clemmons fatally shot four Lakewood police officer is in custody and was in prison with him in Arkansas, sources told our CNN affilliate station KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. To read KIRO-TV's story click here. A lone Seattle police officer is being credited with finding and shooting suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons. Authorities say the officer spotted a stolen car in front of a house in Seattle, then shot and killed a man he recognized as Clemmons. Clemmons was reportedly approaching and confronting the officer when he was shot....

Under fire for commuting the sentence of suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Tuesday called some of the criticisms “disgusting” and suggested they were attempts to score political points. “It really does show how sick our society has become that people are more concerned about a campaign three years from now than those grieving families in Washington,” Huckabee said during an interview on Joe Scarborough’s radio show. “It is disgusting, but people use anything as a political weapon.” Huckabee granted Clemmons, a suspect in the killings of four police officers in Washington state over the weekend,...

WORST FEAR CONFIRMED MAURICE CLEMMONS TIED TO NATION OF ISLAM bythelastcrusade.org “Who is your favorite officer down?” Seattle Black Foot Soldier Alfred “Issaquah” Shafford asked a rally to celebrate (what’s being called) “the blow against the white terrorist racism of the Washington State Police Regime” at the Steele Street Forza Coffee House.The hero of the gathering was Maurice Clemens, who had shoot and killed four police officers at another Forza Coffee House - - this one on a side street in Tacoma, Washington, near the McChord Air Base. Some Black Muslims in response to Issaquah’s query, cried out, “Greg...

SEATTLE — A sheriff's spokesman in Washington state says Seattle police have fatally shot the man suspected of gunning down four police officers.

Maurice Clemmons was shot and wounded in South Seattle and has been taken to Harborview Medical Center, according to a law enforcement source.

The conservative blogosphere unleashed a torrent of criticism against Mike Huckabee Monday after a man whose sentence he commuted as Arkansas governor was suspected of gunning down four police officers in Washington state over the weekend. Maurice Clemmons, whom Huckabee granted clemency to nine years ago, remained at large after local police in Lakewood, Wash. mistakenly thought they had him trapped in a house early Monday. Clemmons is reported to have shot the officers as they were sitting at a table in a local coffee shop. While many details of the murders were still unclear Monday, leading online conservative voices...

Authorities doggedly chased down one clue after another as they narrowed their search for the suspect in Sunday morning's cold-blooded killings of four Lakewood police officers. In the latest development, investigators said they are trying to find a car that belongs to the wife of Maurice Clemmons, who's suspected of gunning down the four officers at a coffee shop in the Tacoma suburb of Parkland. Police are on the lookout for a green 1997 Mazda Millenia with Washington plate 208-SSX, said Lt. Dave McDonald with the Puyallup Police Department, who is assisting in the investigation. McDonald didn't give any further...

Police trying to hunt down a man suspected of the execution-style killings of four of their colleagues burst into a house in Seattle today after spending the night trying to talk him out of the building - only to find that he was not there. The setback came after a night of loudspeaker warnings, explosions and gunshots all apparently designed to flush Maurice Clemmons, a convicted armed robber, out of the house. Mr Clemmons, 37, is the prime suspect in the case and witnesses to the murders yesterday morning in a coffee shop on the edge of the McChord Air...

...Tina was our conservative friend. She was excited to be a part of the Olympia Tea Parties and proudly stated why she got involved in politics over the past year. Tina was sharp too, only a couple mornings ago we had a great discussion on the future of our Republic and how we felt true limited government conservatives should take back out political party. If you wanted any details over the massive government spending she would have them for you. If anyone thinks these comments are off color then you did not know Tina well. She would tell you where...

SEATTLE -- The suspect in the fatal shooting of four officers in Parkland was not found inside a Seattle home that was surrounded by a SWAT team and numerous officers, Pierce Co. Sheriff Detective Ed Troyer said. Maurice Clemmons, 37, was believed to be holed up in the home in the Leschi neighborhood after he was shot and wounded by one of the four slain officers before fleeing from the Parkland coffee shop where the officers were gunned down.

Police are searching the University of Washington campus this morning after a report that suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons was seen getting off a Metro bus on campus. The report came about an hour after a Seattle SWAT team searched a Leschi house it had surrounded overnight, but found no sign of Clemmons. The UW sent out an alert to staff, students and faculty, said UW police spokesman Jerome Solomon. He could not say what bus was involved, nor who called in the alleged sighting. He also couldn't say where on campus Clemmons was spotted.

SEATTLE – A suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was holed up at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, police said. Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod him from hiding. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood, which is some 30 miles from the original crime scene.

Commuted sentence citing his "young age" at the time...

Note: Video included. # November 29, 2009 "4 officers shot dead in Wash. coffee shop 'ambush'" CNN.com SNIPPET: "LAKEWOOD, Wash. — SNIPPET: "A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, he said. Police are looking for one man and possibly a second person in the attack, which occurred about 8 a.m., Troyer said. The suspect is described as an African-American man, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, wearing a black coat and blue jeans, with a "scruffy" appearance, he said. The man is believed to have fled the coffee shop on foot,...

Shortly after a jury sentenced John "Jordan" Lewis to death yesterday for killing Philadelphia Police Officer Chuck Cassidy, Lewis' attorney made a prediction. "I told John at the end of the case that he's not going to be executed," said Michael Coard. "He looked at me like I was crazy." If history is any guide, Coard is probably right. Lewis became the 222d resident of Pennsylvania's death row and the seventh man sent there for killing a Philadelphia police officer. But since the death penalty was reinstated in the state in 1978, Pennsylvania has executed just three inmates, all of...

Note: Video and photo included. "Update: Child Porn Found On Suspect's Computer, Investigation: Police Match DNA To Monfort Christopher Monfort detained in the hospital, formal charges likely by the end of the week" Q13 FOX News Online 3:51 PM PST, November 10, 2009 SNIPPET: "SEATTLE - UPDATE: Sources close to the investigation have confirmed to Q13 FOX News that child pornography was found on the a computer belonging to suspected police officer killer, Christopher Monfort." SNIPPET: "Monday afternoon a King County judge found probable cause to detain Christopher Monfort. It is expected that he will be charged by the end...

AP Sources: 1 rampage gun purchased legally By LARA JAKES and DEVLIN BARRETT (AP) – 20 minutes ago WASHINGTON — A 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting was purchased legally by suspect Nidal Hasan at a Texas gun shop, law enforcement officials said Friday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called "Guns Galore" in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead, one of the officials said. The pistol has been dubbed a "cop killer" by...

The alleged head of a militant Islamic group was killed in a shootout with FBI agents in Detroit Wednesday, the FBI announced. Luqman Ameen Abdullah and 10 other men were to be arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit a series of federal crimes. From the FBI release: "During the arrests today, the suspects were ordered to surrender. At one location, four suspects surrendered and were arrested without incident. Luqman Ameen Abdullah did not surrender and fired his weapon. An exchange of gun fire followed and Abdullah was killed. An FBI canine was also killed during the exchange. "Abdullah was...

Contextual linking provided by Topix The U.S. Supreme Court's decision continues to put off a resolution to the Troy Davis case. IN THE matter of convicted cop killer Troy Anthony Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ensured justice, they've ensured delay. On Monday, the high court effectively punted the issue to a lower court - the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia - which cannot itself grant a final resolution in this case. If the district court is not persuaded by Davis' "new evidence," then the convicted man's lawyers will undoubtedly appeal to the 11th U.S....

DELANO, Calif.—Authorities say an inmate convicted of killing four California Highway Patrol officers died over the weekend at Kern Valley State Prison in an apparent suicide. Sixty-seven-year-old Bobby Augusta Davis was pronounced dead early Sunday morning after correctional officers found him unresponsive in his maximum-security single cell. Davis was serving four consecutive life sentences for the April 6, 1970 murders of George Alleyn, Walt Frago, Roger Gore and James Pence. The "Newhall Incident" had been the deadliest for California law enforcement until the fatal shooting of four Oakland police officers in March. Davis originally received the death penalty, but his...

Mexican federal authorities said at a news conference Saturday night in Tijuana that they have arrested the man they believed killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas in Campo Thursday night. The suspect, Earnesto Parra Valenzuela, 36, is in federal custody after being detained yesterday in Tecate. Tecate officials said Friday that they were questioning an armed man found on the Mexican side of the border hours after the shooting. Valenzuela was identified by a smuggling suspect as the man who shot Rosas, authorities said Saturday night. Rosas, 30, a married father of two, was tracking suspected illegal immigrants about...

Policeman's killer, suspected accomplices appear to be illegal immigrants The gunman who fatally shot a Houston police officer in the back before being gunned down by another officer during an undercover sting late Tuesday is believed to have been an illegal immigrant from Mexico, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Robert Rutt, agent in charge of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement office of criminal investigations in Houston, confirmed that Houston police had asked for assistance in determining the immigration status of the gunman shot to death in a drug store parking lot after officer Henry Canales, 42, was fatally wounded....

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The NAACP has held a rally in Savannah aimed at sparing the life of death-row inmate Troy Davis, who was convicted of killing a police officer 20 years ago. NAACP President Ben Jealous led a small, but vocal group Saturday in 38th Street Park as part of the organization's "I Am Troy" Campaign.

NAZARETH — Daniel Autenrieth’s life was unraveling. Creditors had sued him over thousands of dollars in unpaid bills. His house was in foreclosure. His wife of 10 years had filed for divorce and then for a protective order, claiming years of physical and mental abuse. He’d lost custody of their three children. Related headlines The 31-year-old car salesman and youth baseball coach was angry. On Sunday night, his rage boiled over. After arguing with his estranged wife, Autenrieth kidnapped his 9-year-old son at gunpoint and led police on a 40-mile chase into the Pocono Mountains, then started a gun battle...

The cop killer who took the life of a Boston police officer walked out of prison a free man yesterday after just 15 years behind bars, leaving the family of Thomas F. Rose Sr. “sickened,” a family friend says. Rose, a dad of three, was 42 when he was shot and killed by Terrell Muhammad during a struggle inside the Government Center police station in 1993. Muhammad, in an escape attempt, grabbed Rose’s gun and shot him in the chest. He was sentenced to 26 to 30 years in prison for manslaughter, but served only 15 years.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — An Alabama man convicted of killing a police officer has been executed in South Carolina, after cutting himself with a razor Friday. Thomas Treshawn Ivey was put to death by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. Friday in the state's death chamber in Columbia. The 34-year-old made no final statement. Prison officials said Ivey removed a blade from a disposable razor earlier and suffered non-life-threatening wounds when he cut himself on the neck. They strapped him to a chair, until he was strapped down for the lethal injection.

(05-08) 15:31 PDT Columbia, S.C. (AP) -- An Alabama man convicted of killing a police officer has been executed in South Carolina.Thomas Treshawn Ivey was put to death by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. Friday in the state's death chamber in Columbia. The 34-year-old made no final statement. Ivey had been awaiting execution since 1995, when he was convicted of killing Tommy Harrison. Prosecutors said Ivey shot the 38-year-old Orangeburg police sergeant in 1993 after trying to pass a bad check.

OAKLAND — DNA evidence has linked Lovelle Mixon to the sexual assaults of two Oakland women that occurred fewer than eight hours before he began a violent crime spree, which left him and four police officers fatally shot, authorities said Monday. Authorities had said a few weeks ago that DNA evidence linked the 26-year-old Mixon to the rape of a 12-year-old girl in February in the same East Oakland neighborhood where the three sergeants and one officer were shot. Asstistant District Attorney Norbert Chu said Monday that if Mixon were alive, he would "absolutely" have charged him with the three...

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking a new trial for death-row inmate and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Earlier, a lower court rescinded Abu-Jamal's death penalty, which prosecutors have asked to be reinstated. Meanwhile, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, last week's ruling "virtually guarantees that the internationally known death-row inmate will never be freed." Perhaps there were tears shed in Paris, where he is an honorary citizen and where the suburb of St. Denis named a one-way street "Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal" in 2006....

-snip- About a year ago, Mr. Poplawski stopped working to have knee surgery, according to Ms. Devine. Later he took to walking two pit bull mixes, now 7 months old, that the family adopted from the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania. After the shootings, city Animal Control returned them to the shelter. Charlotte Grimme, the shelter's executive director, described them as healthy and good-tempered. But it was one of those dogs urinating on the carpet that apparently prompted the argument between Mr. Poplawski and his mother that spawned her 911 call and brought unsuspecting police into an apparent ambush....

Stung by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week denying a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, supporters of the internationally known death-row inmate met yesterday at a church in West Philadelphia and said they planned to seek some type of presidential intervention on his behalf. The gathering of about 50 people, led by MOVE member Pam Africa, began signing a petition to present to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking for action in the 28-year-old case, in which Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. They also said they would ask Rep. Chaka Fattah to take...

It's very touching. here

CNN’s Rick Sanchez returned to blasting conservatives on Wednesday’s Newsroom program, blaming the recent murder of three Pittsburgh police officers on the Fox News Channel and other media on the right: “That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, ‘Our rights were being infringed upon.’” He tag-teamed with Media Matters fellow Eric Boehlert to argue that conservative media personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity were offering “garden-variety fear and hate mongering...night in...

CNN’s Rick Sanchez returned to blasting conservatives on Wednesday’s Newsroom program, blaming the murder of three Pittsburgh police officers on the Fox News Channel and other media on the right: “That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, ‘Our rights were being infringed upon.’” He tag-teamed with Media Matters fellow Eric Boehlert to argue that conservative media personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity were offering “garden-variety fear and hate mongering...night in and...

The U.S. Supreme Court just denied the former Black Panther known as Mumia Abu-Jamal another trial, despite his lawyers’ unfounded cries of racism influencing his 1982 trial in which he was convicted of murdering 25 year-old Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner.. Last December marked the 27th anniversary of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. While the voice of Officer Faulkner has been silent for more than a quarter of a century, his killer is very much alive and his voice is heard quite often. The former Black Panther who goes by the name Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook)...

The mother of a man charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers told an emergency dispatcher he had weapons, but the dispatcher didn't tell officers, the official in charge of county dispatchers says.

Richard Poplawski, the man charged with gunning down three Pittsburgh police officers Saturday, posted dozens of racist and anti-Semitic messages on a far-right Web site, decrying race-mixing and predicting chaos as the economy collapsed at the hands of "Zionist occupation," investigators said. "It seems to me that our enemies would like nothing more than to see us retreat peaceably into the hills so that they could continue raping the remainder of the land without having to worry about any 'kooks' putting up a fight," reads one post dated Nov. 1, 2008. "I'll subscribe to the camp that believes we are...

Liberal blogs have been tying Richard Poplawski's shooting rampage to the escalating hyperbole of right wing critiques of Obama. The Anti-Defamation League reports that Polawski, in addition to frequenting white supremacist communities online, was a fan of Glenn Beck and believed that Obama was "ramping up the police state." One right wing blogger actually threatened TBogg after he put up a post suggesting a connection between recent conservative hyperbole about Obama and violence. He did so without irony. First of all, I'm really skeptical of efforts to link the violent acts of people who are obviously mentally ill to political...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The mother of a man charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers told a 911 dispatcher he had weapons, but the dispatcher didn't relay that information to officers, the official in charge of county dispatchers says.

PITTSBURGH – The mother of a man charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers told a 911 dispatcher he had weapons, but the dispatcher didn't relay that information to officers, the official in charge of county dispatchers says. The dispatcher should have asked more questions about the weapons, but didn't, and certainly should have told officers so they could take necessary precautions, Allegheny County Chief of Emergency Services Robert Full told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "There is no excuse. It could have been handled better, without a doubt," Full said in Tuesday's editions. Richard Poplawski's mother, Margaret, had dialed 911 Saturday...