This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/us/police-iowa-ambush-killed.html

The article has changed 15 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 12 Version 13
Iowa Police Arrest Suspect in ‘Ambush’ Killings of 2 Officers Iowa Police Arrest Suspect in ‘Ambush’ Killings of 2 Officers
(about 3 hours later)
Two police officers were shot and killed early Wednesday while sitting in their patrol cars in the Des Moines area, and the authorities later arrested a 46-year-old Iowa man, who had a history of confrontations with the police, in connection with the “ambush-style attacks.” DES MOINES — They were each on overnight patrols early Wednesday, a rookie police officer and a veteran a few miles apart in the Des Moines area, when officials say they had the lethal misfortune to cross paths with an armed, disturbed man whose life was unraveling. Each officer was gunned down in the driver’s seat of his patrol car, without so much as a chance to unholster his weapon.
The man, identified as Scott Michael Greene, surrendered and was taken into custody in Dallas County, just west of Des Moines, said Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesman for the Des Moines Police Department. Investigators quickly identified a suspect in the slayings, who then surrendered — a local man described as a troubled loner who was familiar to the police in his suburban town, Urbandale. He had a string of arrests and confrontations with officers and others, but nothing in his record approached the scale of violence that erupted here.
“There’s nothing to indicate right now that there’s anybody else involved,” Sergeant Parizek said. Just hours before the two officers were killed, a court had ordered the man, Scott M. Greene, 46, to move out of his mother’s house, after she accused him of emotional and physical abuse. A few weeks ago, the Urbandale police had escorted him out of a football game being played by his daughter’s high school, after he waved a Confederate flag in front of black students, leading to restrictions on his ability to set foot on school property.
Officials did not explain how investigators had identified Mr. Greene, of Urbandale, Iowa, as a suspect, but said he had already been familiar to the police. “Most of our officers have some understanding of Mr. Greene,” Ross McCarty, the Urbandale police chief, said at a news conference. He did not elaborate. But none of it added up to an explanation for the deadly assaults, said Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesman for the Des Moines Police Department, who added that the suspect appeared to have acted alone. “We may never actually know what motivated this act,” he said.
The two officers who were killed, in separate attacks a few miles apart, were identified as Officer Justin Martin of the Urbandale police and Sgt. Anthony Beminio of the Des Moines police. Both men were apparently caught by surprise and had no chance to defend themselves or return fire, the authorities said. The shootings were the latest of a spike in killings of law enforcement officers this year, a trend that has alarmed the police and their supporters, and that has intensified election-year debates about relations between communities and the officers who patrol them. President Obama, in a statement, described the killings as “shameful acts of violence.”
Sergeant Beminio was a veteran officer with a wife and children, while Officer Martin, who was in his mid-20s, became an officer just last year, officials said. “Sgt. Anthony Beminio and Officer Justin Martin represented our best, most decent instincts as human beings — to serve our neighbors, to put ourselves in harm’s way for someone else,” he said, offering his condolences to the officers’ families, fellow officers and communities.
Chief McCarty said that in the shooting of Officer Martin, it appeared that the gunman had walked up to the side of the patrol car and fired “over 15 and under 30” rounds. Many .223-caliber shell casings were found, but officials said that they had not yet recovered the weapon and that there might have been more than one. Just after 1 a.m. Wednesday, the police in Urbandale, a city of 45,000, responded to reports of gunfire at the intersection of 70th Street and Aurora Avenue — the location of the football stadium Mr. Greene had been thrown out of, just a few blocks from his home. There they found Officer Martin, 24, who became an officer just last year, shot to death.
Mr. Greene had some confrontations with the police in the recent past, as well as minor criminal convictions, but Sergeant Parizek said the authorities did not yet know of the motive for the shootings. “We may never actually know what motivated this act,” he said. Ross McCarty, the Urbandale police chief, said a gunman had walked up to the side of the patrol car and fired “over 15 and under 30” rounds, leaving .223-caliber shell casings scattered on the pavement.
Just a few weeks ago, Urbandale police officers escorted Mr. Greene from an Urbandale High School football game, Chief McCarty said, after he waved a Confederate flag in front of black students and others in the crowd complained that he was creating a disturbance. Mr. Greene, whose daughter attends the high school, was given a trespass warning, the police said. “He was working out with the school officials what are the parameters of when he could be on the school grounds and when he could not,” Chief McCarty said. Around 1:30 a.m., about a mile and a half away at Merle Hay Road and Sheridan Avenue in Des Moines, Sergeant Beminio, 39, of the Des Moines police, was found killed in a similar ambush. Officials said he was married and had children.
The first shooting Wednesday, of Officer Martin, occurred at the intersection where that football field is found, a few blocks from the house where Mr. Greene lives.
A video, apparently shot by Mr. Greene and posted on Oct. 16 to a YouTube account in his name, appears to shows the latter part of the high school confrontation; on it, an officer can be heard referring to the man making the recording as Mr. Greene.
In the video, the man sounds angry and says someone hit him and took his Confederate flag. The officers can be heard telling him that he is being accused of trespassing and causing a disturbance, and that he is no longer permitted on the grounds.
The man repeatedly demands that officers return his flag and file assault and robbery charges against “the African-American people that were behind me.”
“I was peacefully protesting,” he says, asking the officers dozens of times what crime he had committed.
In April 2014, Mr. Greene was arrested and charged with interference with official acts, accused of resisting an Urbandale officer’s attempt to pat him down for weapons. The complaint described him as combative, but did not say why the officer had wanted to search him.
Two days later, Mr. Greene was arrested again and charged with harassment, after reportedly threatening a man and using a racial slur against him.
He pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in both cases, and was fined and given probation. A judge ordered Mr. Greene to have no further contact with the man he harassed, and to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. In May 2016, fees he owed to Polk County related to those two cases were referred for debt collection.
Mr. Greene was arrested on an assault charge in 2001, but the charges in that incident were dropped.
Chief McCarty said Mr. Green had been back in court on Tuesday, though he was unsure of the details. “His mother and him had a disagreement over something — I’m not sure if it’s a civil case or criminal,” the chief said.
Expressing condolences, President Obama said the two slain officers “represented our best, most decent instincts as human beings — to serve our neighbors, to put ourselves in harm’s way for someone else.”
“They knew the dangers of their job. They knew the risks,” Mr. Obama said. “Yet they chose to dedicate themselves to those values anyway.”
A neighbor, Tim Tinkle, described a series of personal hardships Mr. Greene had gone through, including the death of his father in 2010. “His wife left him” and “his kids got separated from him,” Mr. Tinkle said.
Another neighbor, Patti Draughn, said her husband, Larry, fished with Mr. Greene occasionally, and she described him as a “loner” and “a sad man.” He “kind of had a lot of sorrows in his life,” she said.
Mr. Greene lived in a one-story beige house a few minutes’ drive from the high school. The house is listed in public records as belonging to his mother, Patricia Ann Greene, who posted bail for him after the 2014 arrests.
Early Wednesday morning, neighbors in the quiet Urbandale neighborhood, where many people do not bother to lock their doors, woke up Wednesday to the sight of a SWAT team surrounding the home.
The shootings Wednesday began just after 1 a.m. The police in Urbandale, a suburb of Des Moines, responding to reports of gunfire, arrived near the intersection of 70th Street and Aurora Avenue, where they found Officer Martin.
Officers from Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city, and other agencies were called in for help. Around 1:30 a.m., Sergeant Beminio was found shot at the intersection of Merle Hay Road and Sheridan Avenue in Des Moines — about a five-minute drive from where the first officer was found.
“The shootings appear to have been ambush-style attacks,” the Urbandale police said in a statement.
“It doesn’t look like there was an exchange of conversation; there definitely wasn’t an opportunity for these officers to defend themselves,” Sergeant Parizek said.“It doesn’t look like there was an exchange of conversation; there definitely wasn’t an opportunity for these officers to defend themselves,” Sergeant Parizek said.
Later on Wednesday morning, on a gravel road along Interstate 80 in Dallas County, Mr. Greene flagged down a passing employee of the state Department of Natural Resources, showed his identification and told the employee to call 911, the sergeant said. Sheriff’s deputies and state troopers responded, found him unarmed, and took him into custody without incident. Within hours, officials had named Mr. Greene as a suspect; they would not say what evidence led to him but said he was well known to the Urbandale police. “Most of our officers have some understanding of Mr. Greene,” Chief McCarty said.
“He did complain of some kind of flare-up of an existing medical condition, and he’s been taken to the hospital,” Sergeant Parizek said. On Oct. 14, school officials asked Mr. Greene to leave the Urbandale High School football game, saying he was creating a disturbance. The encounter, which was captured on video, showed police officers urging him to leave the school grounds and giving him a trespassing warning, as Mr. Greene insisted he had broken no laws.
Some schools near the shooting were closed, and the Clinton campaign said it had canceled a get-out-the-vote event scheduled for the city that was to be attended by former President Bill Clinton and Tim Kaine, the vice-presidential candidate. The video, apparently shot by Mr. Greene and posted on Oct. 16 to a YouTube account in his name, does not show what set off the police intervention. But in the video, the man, who is referred to by an officer as Mr. Greene, repeatedly demands that officers return his flag and file assault and robbery charges against “the African-American people that were behind me,” who he said hit him and took his flag.
Near the scene of the first shooting, Dorothy Grandon, 60, said that just after 1 a.m., she heard what she thought could have been multiple gun shots, and her dog started barking. “By the time I got the dog quieted down, I picked up my phone and it said 1:09,” she said. That same day, the police were called to the home of his mother, Patricia Ann Greene, where Mr. Greene lived, along with his teenage daughter, the youngest of his three children. He was caring for a pit bull belonging to his older daughter, but his mother wanted the dog out of the house, and he accused her of grabbing him by a necklace and hitting him, according to court records, leading to her arrest.
She did not hear anything else, and soon fell back asleep. She did not get up again until 4 a.m., she said, when she saw flashing lights and a police car with its door open. Later, watching the news, she recognized that car as the one in which the police officer had been shot. It was still sitting there, when she left for work at about 7:45. Days later, Ms. Greene accused her son of abuse and financial exploitation, and she asked for an order of protection against him. In a hearing in District Court for Polk County, a judge granted that request, ordering Mr. Greene out of the house by next Sunday and to pay his mother $10,000.
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, killings of officers have risen in the United States this year, and the organization has noted with alarm an increase in “ambush killings” of officers. It appears unlikely that Mr. Greene could have paid the $10,000; he filed for bankruptcy in 2007, and the fees he owed a court from a pair of 2014 criminal cases were recently referred for debt collection. He had worked part time at two hardware stores, but had quit, saying he hoped to find full-time work so he could support his daughter, said Gordon Sterk, the owner of the stores.
A report released by the organization in late July noted that there had already been 14 “ambush killings of unsuspecting law enforcement officers” in 2016, compared with three in the same time period the previous year. He was a good employee, Mr. Sterk said, and “I’ve never known him as a hater of anyone or anything.”
On July 7, five police officers were gunned down in Dallas by Micah X. Johnson, an Army veteran who was angered at police treatment of African-Americans. Ten days later, three officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, La., by Gavin Long, who had a history of paranoid rantings. In April 2014, the Urbandale police charged Mr. Greene with interference with official acts, after he resisted officers’ efforts to pat him down for weapons. He was “known to go armed,” the police report stated, and was “noncompliant, hostile, combative and made furtive movements towards his pockets.” He fought with officers, who used a Taser to subdue and arrest him.
The killings in Iowa also recalled the ambush-style killings of police officers in Brooklyn in December 2014, when two police officers sitting in a patrol car were shot at point-blank range. Just two days later, he was arrested again and charged with harassment, accused of approaching a man in an Urbandale parking lot, shining a flashlight at him, threatening to kill him and using a racial slur. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in both cases and was fined and given probation.
Sergeant Parizek, asked about the dangers that face police officers, responded: “There is clearly a danger if you’re a police officer. These guys were gunned down, sitting in their car doing nothing wrong.” He added: “There is a clear and present danger to police officers right now.” Mr. Greene was arrested on an assault charge in 2001, but the charges were dropped.
He alluded to the tensions in police-community relations throughout the country. People who know Mr. Greene said that the events of recent years, including the end of his marriage and the death of his father, had taken a toll on him. Some said he had served in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, but Mr. Greene’s Defense Department records show that his only service was a stint in the Army, none of it in a combat zone, from 1989 to 1993.
“We’re very well aware of the society that we’re living in right now and the time,” he said. “And that there are some not-so-positive views of law enforcement that a segment of our population holds.” “His wife left him” and “his kids got separated from him,” said Tim Tinkle, a neighbor.
“If we don’t provide the service in the area that we do, with the personal-type service that we do, we’re nothing more than an occupying army,” he said. Another neighbor, Patti Draughn, said her husband, Larry, fished with Mr. Greene occasionally, and she described him as a “loner” and “a sad man.”
Sergeant Parizek said, “We’re going to do what we can to keep ourselves safe” adding that the police would continue to “answer the call” as expected. The Greenes live in a one-story beige house with a Trump-Pence sign in the front yard, in a neighborhood where many people say they do not bother to lock their doors. But residents woke up Wednesday to the sight of a SWAT team surrounding the home.
He said Des Moines police officers would temporarily conduct their patrols in pairs, to afford better protection. Later that morning, on a gravel road along Interstate 80 in Dallas County, west of Des Moines, Mr. Greene flagged down a passing employee of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, showed his identification and told the employee to call 911, Sergeant Parizek said. Sheriff’s deputies and state troopers responded, found him unarmed and took him into custody, the sergeant said, but Mr. Greene complained of a medical problem and was taken to a hospital.
Gov. Terry E. Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds released a joint statement, sending thoughts and prayers to the families of the officers who were killed and those “who continue to put themselves in harm’s way.” Investigators were searching for the gun or guns used in the shootings.
“An attack on public safety officers is an attack on the public safety of all Iowans,” the statement said. “We call on Iowans to support our law enforcement officials in bringing this suspect to justice.” According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, the number of officers fatally shot in the line of duty nationwide is up sharply this year, to 52 through Nov. 2, compared with 33 by the same date in 2015, which was one of the safest years on record for officers. The organization has noted with particular alarm an increase in “ambush killings,” to 14 this year, up from three in the same time period last year.
The killings appeared to be the first times Des Moines police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty since 1977. The department of 376 officers had been mourning the deaths of two officers who were killed in March when their patrol car was struck head-on by a drunken driver who was going the wrong direction on Interstate 80. On July 7, five police officers were gunned down in Dallas by Micah Johnson, an Army veteran who was angered by police treatment of African-Americans. Days later, three officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, La., by Gavin Long, who had a history of paranoid rantings. The killings led to a campaign with the slogan “Blue Lives Matter.”