Maurice Clemmons, the man who killed four Lakewood, Wash., police officers, may have walked the streets due to confused record keeping in Washington state.
Fellow Watchdog reporter Scott St. Clair with the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has uncovered documentsfrom his state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) showing the DOC number and the Washington state identification numbers assigned to Clemmons got mixed up with another offender whose file had been closed in December 2005. The other offender, Terry Gene Hamilton, had been under supervision after a conviction for burglary.
Gov. Christine Gregoire has placed the blame for Clemmons being allowed to remain at large on officials with the Arkansas Department of Corrections. She claims they botched paperwork necessary to keep him from posting bail. A call to her office seeking comment on the Washington State DOC records confusion has not been returned Friday.
Read the whole story here.
[...] Watchdog’s post on the subject, as well as the report that started it [...]