Suspect in Officer Deaths Has History of Racial Provocations

DES MOINES, Iowa— A white man with a history of racial provocations and confrontations with police ambushed and fatally shot two white officers in separate attacks as they sat in their patrol cars, authorities said.Police took 46-year-old Scott Micha...

Law enforcement officers gather in front of a home near the scene of a shooting, Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in Urbandale, Iowa. Authorities apprehended a man Wednesday suspected in the early morning killings of two Des Moines area police officers who were shot to death while sitting in their patrol cars in what authorities described as separate ambush-style attacks. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

DES MOINES, Iowa—A white man with a history of racial provocations and confrontations with police ambushed and fatally shot two white officers in separate attacks as they sat in their patrol cars, authorities said.

Police took 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene into custody hours after the killings and less than three weeks after he argued with officers who removed him from a high school football game where he had unfurled a Confederate flag near black spectators. The officers were fatally shot early Wednesday.

Greene flagged down an Iowa Department of Natural Resources employee in a rural area west of Des Moines, identified himself and asked that the employee call 911. Sheriff’s deputies and state patrol officers took him into custody.

He’s suspected in the early morning slayings of 24-year-old Justin Martin, who had been with the force in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale since 2015, and 38-year-old Sgt. Anthony Beminio, who joined the Des Moines department in 2005.

This undated photo provided by the Des Moines Police Department shows Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale, Iowa. Des Moines Police Department via AP