The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has reported that four police officers have been shot dead in an ambush at the Forza Coffee shop at 11401 on South Steele Street near Parkland Sunday morning.
Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer could not say what agency the officers were from.
The officers were sitting in the coffee shop with their computers out when the shooter came in. The officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery, investigators believe.
Pierce County deputies are working at the scene with Tacoma Police, Lakewood Police and the Washington State Patrol.
"It looks like a flat-out ambush," Troyer said. "Some one came in and opened fire.
The baristas who were inside the shop are "stunned and shocked, traumatized," Troyer said.
A $10,000 reward has been offered for information in the killings. The amount is expected rise, Troyer said.
"The first one to call with information gets it," he said.
Dave Gabrielson, a clerk at the Foot Mart at 112th and Steel Street South, about a block away from the coffee shop, arrived at work about 7:45 a.m. All was quiet then and he opened the store as usual at 8 a.m.
Then about 30 minutes later, Gabrielson said, "All of a sudden a million cops were zooming up and down the road."
He said he saw officers bring a police dog into the Willow Park Apartments, where he has lived after recently moving to the area.
(MSNBC) 4 police officers killed in Wash. coffee shop
Four police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning as they sat in a coffee shop Sunday morning in what sheriff's officials described as an "ambush."
The officers were in the cafe at a strip mall in the Tacoma suburb of Lakewood with their laptop computers, preparing for their day shifts, when one or two gunmen walked in and opened fire, Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.
"This was a targeted, selected ambush," Troyer said, adding that customers and baristas were in the Forza Coffee shop at the time but no one else was shot at or injured.
Authorities were searching for the gunmen, and nearby McChord Air Force Base was put on alert.
A $10,000 reward was being offered for information leading to those responsible.
Brad Carpenter, the founder of Forza Coffee, told NBC News that all his employees were accounted for. A retired police officer himself, Carpenter started Forza in 2002 and now has 21 stores, primarily in the Tacoma area.
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Sources: Seattle Times, MSNBC, Google Maps
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