On a quiet Sunday morning, November 29, 2009, in Parkland, Washington, the life of 40-year-old White/Caucasian female, Tina Gail Delong-Griswold, was tragically cut short in a violent ambush. A fourteen-year veteran of law enforcement, Officer Delong-Griswold had been with the Lakewood Police Department for five years. On that fateful day, she and three of her colleagues, Sergeant Mark Renninger, Officer Greg Richards, and Officer Ronald Owens, had just concluded a call and stopped at a local
coffee shop to catch up on paperwork. The four officers were relaxing, with Delong-Griswold, Renninger, and Owens seated at a table while Richards was ordering coffee.
The mundane scene was shattered when a lone gunman entered the coffee shop and, without any warning, walked directly to the officers' table. The assailant drew a 9mm handgun and opened fire, shooting and killing Officer Delong-Griswold and Sergeant Renninger. The gunman's weapon then reportedly jammed, leading to a physical struggle with Officer Owens. During the altercation, the suspect drew a second weapon, a. 38 caliber revolver, and fatally shot Officer Owens. Officer Richards, hearing the gunshots, moved to intervene and became engaged in a physical fight with the suspect. In the struggle, Richards managed to shoot the suspect once in the torso before the assailant gained control of his own weapon and killed the officer.
Following the deadly shooting, the suspect fled the scene, sparking a massive two-day manhunt. The search for the killer came to an end in Seattle when a police officer spotted the suspect near a stolen car. As the officer attempted to take him into custody, the suspect refused to comply and tried to flee, which resulted in the officer fatally shooting him. The man responsible for the deaths of the four officers, Maurice Clemmons, was thereby killed before he could be formally arrested and brought to trial. The brazen and targeted attack on the uniformed officers sent shockwaves through the community and the nation. The father of Tina Delong-Griswold later expressed his anger that the suspect, who had a long criminal history, had been released from prison prior to the shooting.
