Police: DNA from officer's slaying matches suspect

DNA found at the scene of the Oct. 22 firebombing of four police vehicles and recovered from the scene of the fatal shooting of a Seattle police officer matches that of suspect Christopher John Monfort, police said today.

Police also said during a news conference that they have matched the ballistics from an assault rifle found in Monfort's apartment on Saturday with the bullets that killed Officer Timothy Brenton and wounded his partner Britt Sweeney on Halloween night.

Montfort, who is in Harborview Medical Center recovering from gunshot wounds, is being held on investigation of aggravated first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. He has not been charged.

During the news conference, Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel described how detectives built a case against Monfort. He also revealed that the car police say Monfort was driving the night Brenton was killed had sustained damage from at least one bullet fired by Sweeney.

The four police vehicles were destroyed when someone ignited homemade bombs at a city maintenance yard at 714 S. Charles St., near Qwest Field. News reports at the time said fliers were left at the maintenance yard referring to the rally and citing the case of a King County sheriff's deputy accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a SeaTac holding cell Nov. 29, 2008. The deputy was fired Sept. 9 over the beating, which was captured on surveillance tape.

Pugel said police believe the bombs were set to possibly inflict injuries on responding officers and firefighters.

The first explosion and fire destroyed an RV used as a mobile command post. As police and firefighters arrived at the scene three more explosions torched police cars.

Pugel called the RV blast "bait to get [officers] in there."

No one was injured in the blasts.

Police also released photos of evidence found during the search on Monfort's Tukwila apartment, including weapons and homemade firebombs. They also released a police-car video of a traffic stop of Monfort in the weeks before Brenton was killed.

Meanwhile, a public defender will go to court this afternoon to ask a judge for access to Monfort.

Julie Lawry, who works for Associated Council for the Accused, said Monfort has not spoken with his family or an attorney since he was taken to Harborview Medical Center on Friday night after being shot by Seattle detectives. Monfort has not been charged with a crime and prosecutors say he likely won't be until later this week.

"I have been told he's in a secure location, he hasn't asked for an attorney and we can't see him," Lawry said. "I don't know if he has the mental capacity to request a lawyer. He's being isolated from anyone who can assist him."

The hearing is scheduled for 4 p.m.

Prosecutors are awaiting information from Seattle police before deciding whether to file an aggravated first-degree murder charge against Monfort, said Ian Goodhew, deputy chief of staff for King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.

"Our job is to review the case for any and all charges, including aggravated first-degree murder," Goodhew said Sunday. "There are only two penalties for aggravated first-degree murder: the death penalty, or life in prison."

State law mandates that an aggravated first-degree-murder charge can be sought only under specific circumstances — if the premeditated slaying happened during the commission of a rape, robbery, kidnapping or other high-level crime; if a suspect killed someone after escaping from prison; or if the person slain was a police officer.

Once an aggravated murder charge is filed, a prosecutor's office has 30 days from a suspect's arraignment to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Monfort, 41, remains in serious condition at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center today. Monfort's mother is in Seattle from her home in Alaska and has declined to comment.

"They are very traumatized for what has happened to their loved one and they are very empathetic to Officer Brenton's family," said Lawry, who has spoken with Monfort's mother today. "They're trying to manage all those emotions the best they can."

As Brenton's memorial service concluded at KeyArena on Friday afternoon, a group of detectives confronted Monfort in the parking lot outside his apartment, Pugel said. Monfort fled, turned and aimed a gun at police, authorities said. The weapon failed to fire, and the three detectives shot him.

Hours after he was shot, details surfaced about Monfort's private life, an incongruous existence filled with an apparent hatred of police yet jobs in fields related to law enforcement.

The 41-year-old man recently had worked as a security guard, yet he had written a manifesto lambasting police brutality, sources said. Monfort worked with youth, teaching them about the criminal-justice system, yet police said his apartment had such an overflow of firearms and potential explosives that officers had to evacuate the complex twice since Friday night to guarantee the safety of other residents.

Monfort worked as a volunteer in the school program at the juvenile detention center in Seattle from 2007 through this year, Kathy Van Olst, director of the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, said Monday.

Van Olst said volunteers are required to produce identification and that a criminal-background check is made of applicants. Monfort has no criminal history.

Pam Jones, King County director of juvenile detention, said Monfort volunteered at the detention center to meet a 100-hour volunteer requirement of the criminal-justice program at the University of Washington, where he was a student.

Monfort appeared 17 times in 2007, 11 times in 2008 and twice this year, Jones said.

He was supposed to teach "criminal-justice topics and talking overall about the system and the courts," Jones said.

Jones said she didn't know Monfort, but others described him as "just quiet."

"He didn't stand out to anybody," Jones said.

Investigators were first led to Monfort's Tukwila apartment because of a tip about his car, an early 1980s Datsun 210. Police had been searching for similar cars since one had been seen in the area just minutes before and after Brenton and his rookie partner, Officer Britt Sweeney, were ambushed.

The officers were parked in the Leschi neighborhood around 10 p.m. Oct. 31 when someone pulled up next to their patrol car and opened fire. Brenton was killed instantly and Sweeney suffered minor wounds. She was able to get out of the police car and fire at the vehicle, which backed up and sped away.

Pugel said a search of Monfort's apartment turned up bomb-making materials, improvised explosive devices and two rifles, including a "military-style assault rifle" similar to the type of weapon police believe was used to fire at Brenton, 39, and Sweeney, 33. Additional bomb-making materials were found inside a storage shed attached to his patio.

On Saturday, Seattle Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel called Monfort a "domestic terrorist."

Investigators have linked Monfort to a firebombing at a Seattle Police Department maintenance yard Oct. 22. A small American flag was left behind at the South Seattle facility and near Brenton and Sweeney's police cruiser — an apparent calling card from the suspect, investigators said.

Inside Monfort's apartment, detectives found news clippings about the maintenance-yard destruction. They also found a manifesto protesting police brutality and the videotaped jail-cell beating of a 15-year-old girl by a King County sheriff's deputy last year in SeaTac. A one-page note was found at the maintenance yard, lambasting the SeaTac beating and threatening police deaths if the violence didn't stop.

Seattle Times reporter Mike Carter contributed to this report.

Information from Seattle Times archives is included

in this report.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com