Pierce County official says robbery suspect sketch is not Clemmons
Published 5:12 pm Monday, December 7, 2009
A sketch of one of the men suspected in three armed robberies in Kitsap County last year is not of Maurice Clemmons, said Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Scott Wilson.
“The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department’s Public Information Officer Ed Troyer told me the sketch is not Clemmons,” Wilson said, explaining that he spoke to Troyer Sunday night regarding the speculation that Clemmons, the suspect in the shootings of four Lakewood Police officers Nov. 29, resembled a sketch of one of the men suspected of committing several robberies in Kitsap and Pierce counties.
Wilson said he could not reveal any details as to why Troyer said the sketch is not of Clemmons, but “if he says it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him.”
Clemmons, 37, is suspected of entering a coffee shop in Parkland, near the McChord Air Force base, shortly after 8 a.m. Nov. 29 and shooting four Lakewood officers execution-style.
Two days later, he was killed by a Seattle Police Officer who was investigating a stolen vehicle in South Seattle.
The three Kitsap robberies that are tied to the suspect in the sketch began in April of 2008, when two men wearing hooded sweatshirts and bandanas robbed the Dollar Tree Store on Silverdale Way in Silverdale. In September, two men dressed in a similar fashion robbed the Great Clips hair salon at Bethel and Lund avenues in Port Orchard, and less than a week later, two armed men robbed an Auto Zone store in East Bremerton.
Wilson said the sketch was released by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, and the similarities were first brought to his attention by a Seattle Times reporter.
“There is a distinct similarity between (Clemmons and the sketch), other than the mole issue,” Wilson said, referring to the large mole on Clemmons’ left cheek that can be clearly seen in the mug shot released to the public after the Lakewood shootings. “Although, things like that can be easily covered.”
Wilson said the investigations into the three Kitsap robberies are “still open.”
