On July 9, 1987, Sergeant Ira Parker, a 41-year-old male, was shot and killed in Inkster, Michigan. A 15-year veteran of the Inkster Police Department and a United States Air Force Vietnam veteran, he was responding to a call at a motel on Michigan Avenue. Two other officers, Daniel Dubiel and Clay Hoover, were already at the scene to serve a warrant for a bad check on a 68-year-old woman.
Upon their arrival, Officers Dubiel and Hoover were asked to assist one of the woman's sons who had recently undergone kidney dialysis. Officer Dubiel then requested Sergeant Parker to bring a summons instead of arresting the individuals. As the officers waited in the motel room with the woman and her three sons, the situation took a tragic turn. When Sergeant Parker entered the room, the suspects opened fire, killing all three officers instantly. Each officer was struck by multiple bullets. Ballistics tests later indicated that the officers were shot with the revolvers they had carried into the motel room, as well as with weapons owned by the suspects.
Following the initial shooting, a lengthy ten-hour standoff ensued. The suspects, a 70-year-old woman named Alberta Easter and her three sons, Roy Lemons Jr., William M. Lemons, and George L. Lemons, barricaded themselves inside the motel room. During the standoff, they fired hundreds of rounds. The woman initially misled police negotiators by claiming the officers were being held hostage. The standoff concluded when the four family members, equipped with gas masks to combat tear gas deployed by police, surrendered.
After their surrender, Alberta Easter and her three sons were arrested and charged with first-degree murder. They pleaded not guilty, but all four were ultimately convicted for their roles in the murders and each was sentenced to three life terms in prison. The mother, Alberta Easter, died in prison on June 12, 2011. One of her sons also died in prison in 1996. Sergeant Parker was survived by his wife and four children.
