4 Police Officers Killed In Washington Ambush

One of four police officers killed in an ambush at a coffeehouse Sunday fought with the gunman and may have wounded him before the officer died just outside the doorway, a sheriff's spokesman said. Pierce County, Wash., sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that investigators were asking area medical providers to report any people wounded by gunshots.

Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were shot dead while sitting in the shop, and a third was killed after standing up. The fourth apparently struggled with the gunman out the doorway and "gave up a good fight," getting off a few shots before he was either shot there or succumbed to earlier wounds.

"We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight ... that he fought the guy all the way out the door," Troyer said. "We hope that he hit him."

The gunman burst into the coffeehouse Sunday morning and opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops, killing the three men and one woman in what Troyer described as a targeted ambush.

Troyer said officers were looking for one male suspect who fled the scene and haven't ruled out an accomplice, possibly a getaway driver. Troyer said investigators determined that a hoax call from a person in nearby Tacoma led officers to believe the gunman was on foot and still near the coffee shop. A number of officers spent part of the afternoon carefully searching buildings close by.

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Police helicopter downed in Brazil by drug gang

Two Brazilian policemen have been killed after their helicopter came under fire from gang members in a slum below them and crashed. The pilot struggled to put the helicopter down safely after being shot in the leg by suspected drug-traffickers while flying over a Rio slum on Saturday, a police official said.

"The helicopter was hit by criminals and the pilot made a forced landing on a football pitch," Major Oderlei Santos of the military police said. The aircraft exploded shortly after touching down, leaving two officers stuck inside the burning wreckage.

The helicopter had been carrying six police officers as part of an operation in Morro dos Macacos, one of Rio's hundreds of slums, which is dominated by heavily armed drug gangs, police said.

• "Brazil 2009 Crime and Safety Report: Rio de Janeiro", Overseas Security Advisory council, 8/21/09.
• "To Rid Slums of Drug Gangs, Police in Rio Try War Tactics", Washington Post, 1/6/09.
• "Brazil's Powerful Prison Gang", Council on Foreign Relations, 9/6/06.

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