Fallen officers Kenneth Woodmore, Ira Parker, Clay Hoover and John Dubiel will be remembered Thursday, July 2 at 8 p.m. with a candlelight vigil at the Inkster Police Department.
The Inkster officers are among the hundreds of Michigan police officers who made the ultimate sacrifice when they were killed in the line of duty in two separate instances, one of which started with a bad check for $286 that inconceivably prompted a family of schemers to ambush officers before claiming they were holding them hostage at at a low-rent motel then known as The Bungalow.
The Officer Down Memorial Page says police work has claimed the lives of 676 officers in Michigan. The nonprofit estimates that more than 27,000 officers have died on the job in America since 1776.
The causes of death for Michigan police officers ranges from car accidents to COVID-19 to stabbing. Gunfire is by far the largest cause, claiming the lives of 365 officers.
Underscoring the dangers of police work — and the seemingly countless variety of threats inherent in the job — two police in Michigan were poisoned and three were killed by streetcars.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, Michigan Department of Corrections Deputy Keeper George Haight died on March 27, 1893, after an inmate “poisoned his food with a mixture of opium and prussic acid (cyanide) at the Michigan State Prison, in Jackson, during an elaborate escape attempt,” according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
The inmate, who was serving a life sentence for poisoning his mother, got special privileges after convincing a guard he would share treasure he claimed was buried in Rhode Island. He escaped by taking prison keys after poisoning guards, including Haight, but was arrested several days later.
Flint Police Detective Caleb Smith died Oct. 27, 1921, after being poisoned with arsenic while taking a midnight lunch break at a restaurant. The culprit was never found.
While more than 100 officers died in Michigan after being hit by cars, while pursuing suspects or in car accidents, those statistics don’t include Detroit Officer Charles Stewart, who was hit by an electric streetcar in downtown Detroit while on bicycle patrol on the evening of Sept. 16, 1899. Michigan State Trooper Howard Funk was serving in the Clinton River Post when his police motorcycle was hit by a streetcar on July 8, 1926. And Detroit Officer Paul Pawlowski was hit by a streetcar on Dec. 21, 1932, “while directing school children at the intersection of Third Street and Peterboro.”
The Inkster officers died in the most common, but no less heartbreaking manner: They were gunned down while performing routine duties that ended in tragedy.
A fatal encounter with a man on a bike
Officer Kenneth Woodmore had been on the job for four years when he stepped out of his patrol car around 1 a.m. on June 17, 1994, to speak to a man on a bicycle near Pine and Henry streets. The Free Press reported at the time that residents called the area “Little Saigon,” because heavy drug activity and other criminal endeavors “made it resemble a war zone.”
The 24-year-old man was Christopher Knox, a suspected drug dealer, who fired several shots into Woodmore’s chest as he approached.
Then-Inkster Police Chief Terry Colwell described Woodmore, 33, as an athletic family man who had four children. Colwell told the Free Press in 1994 that Woodmore was wearing “what people commonly refer to as a bulletproof vest, which is a misnomer.” Woodmore was working solo on a routine patrol when he encountered Knox.
Police later credited residents with providing information that helped them catch Knox, who was eventually convicted of committing first-degree murder.
No such thing as a “routine call”
Hope that Alberta Easter and her boys would release three police officers she claimed to be holding hostage in their rooms at the Bungalow Motel evaporated into a mist of tears early on July 10, 1987, when authorities realized the conwoman and her three sons had killed Clay Hoover, John Dubiel and Ira Parker shortly after their arrival at the Bungalow Motel.
Easter, 69, was a smooth-talker whose get-rich-quick schemes rarely, if ever, paid off for those unlucky enough to believe in them. Hoover and Dubiel showed up at the motel around 5:15 p.m. on July 9, 1987, to arrest Easter and one of her sons for writing a bad check to Rent-a-Jalopy for an 8-year-old Ford station wagon.
The family, which later described the officers as polite and professional, disarmed them and held them as captives until Parker, a sergeant, showed up a little while later.
Parker was shot almost as soon as he entered the family’s rooms, where all three officers died after suffering multiple gunshots. Easter and her boys unleashed hellfire on anyone in the vicinity, with bullets from high-powered handguns and rifles piercing nearby cars and buildings.
After local and state police, as well as the FBI, surrounded the motel, Easter convinced them the Inkster officers were tied up and safe in a bathroom. She demanded to speak with Bill Bonds, then Detroit’s top television news anchor, and Coleman Young, who was then mayor of Detroit. She settled for one of Bonds’ colleagues, dropped her demand to speak with the mayor, and talked to one of Detroit’s most prominent pastors.
After a 10-hour standoff, it became clear that Dubiel, who was 36 and had a pregnant wife and four children; Hoover, who was 24 and was engaged to be married; and Parker, who was 41 and married with four children, were dead.
Easter and her sons Roy Lemons Jr. 47, William Lemons, 43, and George Lemons, 45, provided conflicting accounts of what happened, including claims that the officers shot each other. Easter blamed everyone but herself and her sons, but all four were eventually convicted after a lengthy trial.
Easter and George Lemons died in prison. William Lemons was sentenced to life in prison, but his current whereabouts are not known.
Even if Roy Lemons or Christopher Knox feel remorse for the devastation they wrought on four families and the community served by their loved ones, there is no chance they will attend the vigil.
They also received life sentences, and are expected to die behind bars.
M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, director of student investigative reporting program Eye On Michigan, and host of the ML’s Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on X at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Inkster officers who made ultimate sacrifice will be honored July 2
Reporting by M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
