4 Wash. State Police Officers Gunned Down

• Police outside a Forza Coffee Co. shop in Parkland, Wash., where four Lakeland Police officers were killed by one or two gunmen, November 29, 2009. Police say the victims appeared to have been targeted amd were caught in a “flat-out ambush.” (AP/Lui Kit Wong, News Tribune)

(CBS/AP)

Last Updated 3:48 p.m. ET

Four police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning in what authorities called a targeted ambush at a coffee house in Washington State, a sheriff’s official said.

Officials at the scene told The News Tribune in Tacoma that two gunmen burst into the Forza Coffee Co. and shot the four uniformed officers as they were working on their laptop computers, then fled the scene.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said investigators believe the officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery.

Troyer told the newspaper “it was just a flat-out ambush.” No one else in the coffee shop was hurt.

It wasn’t clear whether the officers even had time to draw their weapons to return fire, Troyer said.

“This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers,” Troyer said.

Troyer said the officers - all from the Lakewood Police Department - were catching up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts when they were attacked at 8:15 a.m. Sunday.

Troyer said the attack was clearly targeted at the officers, not a robbery gone bad.

“There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform,” Troyer said.

Source:
4 Wash. State Police Officers Gunned Down
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