WITNESS SAYS ALLEGED GUNMAN SHOWED NO URGENCY
The 46-year-old Iowa man accused of brutally murdering two cops while they were sitting in their patrol cars was indifferent and measured as he walked away from the scene of the first of two deadly ambushes he’s accused of carrying out in the Des Moines area, a shaken witness told the Herald.
“I heard rapid gunfire, and so I peeked out of my bedroom window and I saw a white male standing at the window of the police vehicle,” recalled Russell Cheatem, whose house overlooks the spot where 24-yearold Urbandale cop Justin Martin was executed about 1 a.m. yesterday
“There did not seem to be any sense of urgency,” Cheatem, 52, said. “He did not appear to be suspicious. I thought he was talking with the police officer.”
When the suspected gunman, identified by authorities as 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene, got into his truck and drove off, Cheatem said he walked out to the cruiser and found it riddled with bullets — and Martin slumped over behind the wheel.
“I opened the door and the officer was slumped over and I knew there was no need, that he was gone. I could just tell he was gone,” Cheatem said. “This poor police officer never had a chance. He didn’t have his hand on his gun, didn’t have his door open, his window wasn’t down.”
Although cops raced to the scene in minutes, another round of gunfire erupted blocks away,
where police say Greene shot and killed 38-year-old Des Moines police Sgt. Anthony Beminio. Greene, Martin and Beminio were all white.
Greene, who later turned himself in to an Iowa state employee in a rural area west of Des Moines, was taken to a hospital for unknown health issues before he was expected to be questioned at Des Moines police headquarters.
The shootings follow a spate of police killings in recent months, including ambushes of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La. Five officers were killed July 7 in Dallas. Three more were killed later that month in Baton Rouge.
The number of police officers gunned down in the line of duty has increased 167 percent this year, Steve Groeninger, spokesperson for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, told USA Today yesterday.
And though the motive for the shootings is under investigation, court records show Greene has a history of racially tinged clashes with law enforcement.
Weeks ago, Greene posted a video of himself in a confrontation at an Urbandale high school football game, during which he appeared to be trying to antagonize black fans by shaking a Confederate flag in front of them during the national anthem, police said.
The video shows officers asking Greene to leave for his inflammatory display while Greene argues his dismissal violates his constitutional rights and claims “black people” took his flag from him.
In April 2014, Greene was convicted on an interference charge after refusing to be pat down by Urbandale cops who spotted a holster-like pouch on his belt. The officers had to use a stun gun to get him to cooperate, according to court documents reviewed by the Herald.
Two days later, Greene was arrested for threatening to kill a man in the parking lot outside his apartment while shouting a racial slur used against blacks.
Greene later pleaded guilty to a second-degree harassment charge, and had his one-year jail sentence suspended, court records show.