Scott Michael Greene.
A statewide manhunt is underway for the suspect in this morning’s fatal shootings of two central Iowa police officers.
The Urbandale and Des Moines police officers were both shot to death in their squad cars minutes apart and the crime scenes are within blocks of one another. Police describe the shootings as ambush-style attacks.
The suspect is identified as 47-year-old Scott Greene of Urbandale. He may be driving a blue Ford F-150 pickup with Iowa plates.
A man with the same name as the suspect posted a ten-minute video on YouTube, in mid-October. It details Greene being escorted out of an Urbandale High School football game, where he’d reportedly been waving a Confederate Flag.
“Have I committed a crime?” the man asks repeatedly in the video, which appears to be recorded by Greene.
A uniformed policeman replied: “We’re asking you to leave.”
The sounds of the football game can be heard in the background of the video. The first shooting occurred at the intersection where the Urbandale High School football field is located.
The fatal shootings are unsettling to residents in the area.
“I saw where the police are going in pairs this morning, which I think is pretty darned wise,” Bob Henderson, a Des Moines resident, said as he stood outside a Des Moines coffee shop with his children.
Metro police held a news conference at about eight o’clock this morning. Des Moines Police Sergeant Paul Parizek told reporters police in the metro know one another well.
“We’re heartbroken,” Parizek said. “I mean, I don’t know how else to put it. There are really no words at times like this.”
(Reporting by Dar Danielson at police headquarters and by Matt Kelley and O. Kay Henderson in the Radio Iowa newsroom)