4 police officers killed in coffee shop ambush

4 police shot dead in coffee shop
November 29, 2009 2:21 p.m. EST
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Police are looking for one man and possibly a second person in the attack
$10,000 reward offered for information leading to arrest, police spokesman says
Police were in coffee shop before the start of their shifts
Law enforcement official describes fatal shootings as an ambush

Lakewood, Washington (CNN) -- Four police officers were fatally shot Sunday in what police said was an ambush in a coffee shop near Tacoma, Washington.

The officers were sitting in the coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington, before the start of their shifts, reading on their computers, when the shooting occurred, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer. He told reporters that authorities believe the officers were meeting and going over cases or doing paperwork.

"This was a targeted, selected ambush," Troyer told reporters. He said a gunman came inside, opened fire and shot all four officers. Two baristas and other customers inside the shop were unharmed -- "just the law enforcement officers were targeted."

Authorities know the identity of the four fallen officers, and were in the process of notifying family members and their departments, he said. He would not say what agencies the officers were from, but said, "they're all from this area."
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4 police shot dead in coffee shop

HLN Clark Howard offers advice to the troops

Operation Clark Smart
Clark Howard has served for eight years as a member of his state guard. And now, he wants to serve his fellow military personnel!

Join Clark and HLN's Robin Meade at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia, as they field the money questions from soldiers of nearby Fort Benning.

Troops have unique financial challenges, and Clark has the solutions -- from help for homeowners who've been ordered to relocate, to paying for moving expenses, and what kind of assistance is available for families of soldiers who've been deployed overseas.

You'll get money-saving tips you can use whether you're in the military or not. Clark talks retirement savings, paying off student loans, and buying cars.
Plus, Robin's stories from her own "Salute To Troops" on HLN's "Morning Express with Robin Meade."

And, Clark teaches soldiers how to get through a year-long deployment on just two razors! Tune in for "Operation Clark Smart" -- this weekend at 6 a.m., 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET.

Wisconsin State Veterans Affairs Secretary fired

Performance, politics or something more?

State Veterans Affairs Secretary fired

By MARY SPICUZZA and JASON STEIN
Wisconsin State Journal
Sunday, November 29, 2009 7:06 AM CST


State Veterans Affairs Secretary John Scocos was fired Tuesday — just two months after returning from a tour in Iraq — and replaced with an agency official he had recently demoted.

Scocos, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2003 and a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, returned to work in late September after a year in Iraq, his second tour there.

The Veterans Affairs board has been signaling disapproval of the agency’s leadership for months, seeking a wide-ranging legislative audit of its workings and criticizing Scocos for failing to update them on the findings of an inquiry into alleged improper spending at a state veterans home.

After a one-and-a-half hour meeting during which board members sharply criticized Scocos’ communication and financial management, the board met briefly in private then voted 5-0 to fire Scocos and replace him with Ken Black, administrator of the agency’s Division of Veterans Benefits. Board chairman Marv Freedman was absent, and one unconfirmed board member, David Boetcher, was ineligible to vote.
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http://www.dunnconnect.com/articles/2009/11/29/news/doc4b1057c08f841499945914.txt

Sometimes you have to laugh

The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

SC WWII vet's battle ends in gunshot at VA clinic

SC WWII vet's battle ends in gunshot at VA clinic
By JEFFREY COLLINS (AP) – 3 hours ago

GREENVILLE, S.C. — On the last day of his long, troubled life, Grover Cleveland Chapman packed a black duffel bag, washed out his coffee cup, put it in the dish rack and fetched his Smith & Wesson.

He threw away his favorite slippers and left his house key on his bedside table in the two-bedroom yellow bungalow he shared with his daughter, tucked in an aging neighborhood full of 1950s starter homes a few miles from downtown Greenville.

Harriett Chapman called as she always did on her morning break at the Walmart deli, checking on her 89-year-old dad. Everything is fine, he told her.

As he shuffled down the steps that spring morning in 2008, Grover Chapman carried the latest letter denying him treatment at the Veterans Affairs clinic in Greenville, directing him instead to take a 200-mile round trip to the VA hospital in Columbia. This time it was about his prostate cancer, though Chapman had received plenty of notices just like it turning him down for help with his jumpiness and frayed nerves. He folded this letter neatly into the bag beside his bottles of medicine and settled into a taxi.

In a few weeks, candidate Barack Obama would take note of what Chapman would do upon arriving at the clinic this last time, calling it an indictment of society's treatment of disabled veterans.

And maybe that's what it was. Or maybe Chapman just didn't want his daughter to have to come home and find him.
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SC WWII vet battle ends in gunshot at VA clinic