My wife, who lived in the Tacoma area for years, says that the Pierce County Sheriff's Office provides the Lakewood Police services under contract. So these officers actually worked for the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. She thinks this is still the case and Lakewood does not have its own free-standing police force.
SEATTLE -- Four Lakewood police officers were shot dead in a Pierce County coffee shop in what a sheriff's spokesman described as a "flat-out ambush" Sunday morning.
Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the officers -- three men and a woman from the Lakewood Police Department -- were sitting in the coffee shop with their computers, getting ready to begin their shifts when the gunman came in at about 8: 30 a.m., fired on the officers and fled.
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He said investigators believe the officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery.
"It was just a flat-out ambush," Troyer said.
The officers were in uniform, and their marked cars were parked in front of the shop.
"The four of them are known by everybody here," Troyer said. "We haven't got any information as to why this happened."
He said there's a $10,000 reward in the case.
He said the gunman is a black man in his 20s or 30s, who was wearing a black coat and blue jeans. He ran from the scene and was last seen on Steele Street.
