Opponents of Arizona immigration law march on state Capitol, supporters plan evening rally

PHOENIX Thousands of people from around the country marched to the Arizona state Capitol on Saturday to protest the state’s tough new crackdown on illegal immigration.Opponents of the law suspended their boycott against Arizona and bused in protesters from around the country. Organizers said the demonstration could bring in as many as 50,000 people.Midtown Phoenix buzzed with protesters carrying signs and American flags. Dozens of police officers were on standby along the route of the five-mile march, and helicopters hovered overhead.

Protesters braved temperatures that were forecast to reach 95 degrees by mid-afternoon. Some used umbrellas or cardboard signs to protect their faces from the sun. Volunteers handed out water bottles from the beds of pickup trucks, and organizers set up three water stations along the route.Supporters of the law expect to draw thousands to a rally of their own Saturday evening at a baseball stadium in suburban Tempe, encouraging like-minded Americans to “buycott” Arizona by planning vacations in the state.

Critics of the law, set to take effect July 29, say it unfairly targets Hispanics and could lead to racial profiling. Its supporters say Arizona is trying to enforce immigration laws because the federal government has failed to do so.The law requires that police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they’re in the country illegally.

Supporters of the law insist racial profiling will not be tolerated, but civil rights leaders worry that officers will still rely on assumptions that illegal immigrants are Hispanic.Luis Jimenez, a 33-year-old college professor who lives in South Hadley, Mass., said the law will force police officers to spend much of their time on immigration violations instead of patrolling neighborhoods or dealing with violent crime.

The law also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally or to impede traffic while hiring day laborers, regardless of the worker’s immigration status.”You’re saying to the cop: ‘Go pick up that day laborer. Don’t worry about that guy committing crimes,'” said Jimenez, a naturalized citizen from Mexico who grew up in Phoenix.

Alfonso Martinez, a 38-year-old Phoenix carpenter and father of three children who are American citizens, said he’s been living illegally in the United States for 21 years while trying to get legal status.”If they stop me and they find my status, who’s going to feed my kids? Who’s going to keep working hard for them?” he said, keeping a careful eye on his 6-year-old daughter as his wife pushed their 4-year-old girl in a stroller. Their 13-year-old son walked ahead of them.

Some opponents of the law have encouraged people to cancel conventions in the state and avoid doing business with Arizona-based companies, hoping the economic pressure forces lawmakers to repeal the law.But Alfredo Gutierrez, chairman of the boycott committee of Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, said the boycott doesn’t apply to people coming to resist the law. Opponents said they secured warehouse space for people to sleep on cots instead of staying in hotels.

“The point was to be here for this march to show support for these folks, then we’re out,” said Jose Vargas, a union representative for New York City teachers. “We’re not spending a dime here.”Supporters of the law sought to counteract the economic damage of boycotts by bringing supporters into the state.”Arizona, we feel, is America’s Alamo in the fight against illegal and dangerous entry into the United States,” said Gina Loudon of St. Louis, who is organizing the “buycott.”

“Our border guards and all of Arizona law enforcement are the undermanned, under-gunned, taxed-to-the-limit front-line defenders trying to hold back the invasion,” she said.In San Francisco, groups planned to protest at the Arizona Diamondbacks’ game against the Giants Saturday night. (AP)

The suspect in the fatal shooting of four police officers

Seattle, Washington The suspect in the fatal shooting of four police officers kept authorities at bay early Monday seven hours after a massive manhunt tracked him to a house in an east Seattle neighborhood.Authorities had been looking for Maurice Clemmons in connection with an “ambush” Sunday morning at a coffee shop near Tacoma in Pierce County. Four officers  three males, one female died in the attack.Authorities identified the victims as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Officer Ronald Owens, 37; Officer Tina Griswold, 40; and Officer Greg Richards, 42. All four had been with the department since its inception, and all of them were parents.

Witnesses told police they had seen Clemmons struck in the leg by a bullet while he struggled with an officer during the attack.Early Monday, authorities started identifying Clemmons as a suspect, rather than as someone wanted for questioning.Police were not looking for anyone else, but had arrested several people who had “helped” Clemmons, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.The night before the shootings, Clemmons had threatened to kill police officers, but witnesses did not report those threats till after the slayings, Troyer told “Good Morning America.”

About 8 p.m. Sunday, police received word that Clemmons had holed up in a home in the Leschi neighborhood.Police blocked off streets and asked residents to stay inside with their doors locked.Not knowing the extent of Clemmons’ wounds, paramedics stood by to assess his condition once the standoff ended.At 4:30 a.m., police were preparing to send a robot door-to-door in the cluster of residences that make up the property where Clemmons is believed to be hiding, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel.

Repeated attempts to make contact with Clemmons were unsuccessful, he said.Clemmons is a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet who had a 95-year prison sentence commuted in 2000 by then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, is considering a run for president in 2012.”Should [Clemmons] be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state,” Huckabee’s office said in a statement Sunday night.

Clemmons, 37, of Pierce County has an “extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.He also was recently charged in Pierce County in the assault of a police officer and rape of a child, according to the statement.Troyer said Arkansan law enforcement officials had indicated that they were willing to forgo Clemmons’ warrants in that state to avoid extraditing him if needed.Clemmons was sentenced to 95 years in prison in 1989 for a host of charges, including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school.During a pretrial hearing, he hid a piece of metal in his sock, media reports at the time said. Before the start of another hearing, he grabbed a padlock off his holding cell and threw it at a court bailiff. He missed, and the lock hit his mother, who had come to bring him clothes.

Huckabee cited Clemmons’ young age — 17 at the time of his sentencing — when he announced his decision to commute the sentence, according to newspaper articles.Clemmons was paroled in August 2000, after serving 11 years of his sentence.”It was not something I was pleased with at the time,” said Larry Jegley, who prosecuted Clemmons for aggravated robbery and other charges in Pulaski County, Arkansas. “I would be most distressed if this is the same guy.”Huckabee’s office said Clemmons’ commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release.”He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him,” the statement said.CNN could not immediately confirm the account. But the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper reported that a year after his release, Clemmons was arrested for aggravated robbery and theft.

He was taken back to prison for parole violation. But, said the paper, he was not served with the arrest warrants for the robbery and theft charges until he left prison three years later, in 2004.His attorney argued the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed by then. Prosecutors dropped the charges.Clemmons is thought to have moved to Washington that year, and for a while ran a pressure-washing and landscaping business. The license for the business expired last month, according to the secretary of state’s office, with which businesses have to register.In recent months, Clemmons has displayed increasingly erratic behavior, the Seattle Times reported. In May, he punched a sheriff’s deputy in the face, the paper said.In another incident, he had relatives undress, telling them families need to be “naked for at least five minutes on Sunday,” the newspaper said, citing a sheriff’s department incident report.

Clemmons also believed he was Jesus and could fly, a deputy wrote, based on conversations with family members.After serving several months in jail on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child, Clemmons was released on bond six days ago, according to the Seattle Times.Sunday’s shooting was the first for the Lakewood police department, which was created five years ago for the town of nearly 60,000. Until then, the Pierce County sheriff’s office provided law enforcement services there.The four officers were awaiting the start of their shift at a coffee shop in Parkland, a unincorporated community just south of Lakewood and about 10 miles from Tacoma.

The officers were in uniform and had marked patrol cars parked outside.The shop on Steele Street is a popular hangout for law enforcement officers and is one of 22 Forza Coffee Co. locations in Washington.”As a retired police officer, this senseless shooting hits extremely close to home to me,” Brad Carpenter, chief executive officer of Forza, said in a statement on the company’s Web site.The attack occurred without warning.”There’s not going to be a big motive other than he was upset about being incarcerated and was going to go gunning after cops in general,” Troyer told reporters.

The shooter walked past the officers to the counter as if to order coffee before he pulled the gun out of his coat and opened fire at 8:15 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.

Two of the officers were “executed” as they sat at a table, said Troyer, the sheriff’s spokesman.Another was shot when he stood up and the fourth was shot after struggling with the gunman all the way out the door, Troyer said.Two baristas and other customers inside the shop were unharmed. “Just the law enforcement officers were targeted,” Troyer said, calling the shooting an ambush.

“What happened in there wasn’t just a shooting,” he told reporters. “After, we believe, some of the officers were shot, one of them managed to fight his way with the suspect — fight his way, wrestle, fight all the way out the the doorway until he was shot and died of a gunshot wound.Witnesses told police they had seen the suspect hit by a gunshot. Investigators checked area hospitals to determine whether the gunman sought medical treatment. A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest.