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Official: Police shooting suspect wounded

LAKEWOOD, Wash., Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The suspect in the shooting deaths of four Seattle-area police officers may have been seriously hurt as he fled, a sheriff's office spokesman said Monday.

Police don't know the extent of suspect Maurice Clemmons's wounds and Pierce County, Wash., sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the suspect may be dead already, The Seattle Times reported.

"He has suffered a gunshot wound," Troyer said during a news briefing.

Four officers were shot and killed Sunday morning as they worked on their laptops at Forza Coffee Company, a coffee shop popular with police in Parkland, about 40 miles from Seattle. The two officers shot were "flat-out executed," and the other others died trying to stop the suspect, Troyer said.

Those killed were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, and officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold and Gregory Richards.

Troyer said officials know Clemmons was wounded because they detained several people police said helped Clemmons after the shootings.

Investigators didn't indicate whether Clemmons had a motive against any of the police officers who died, Troyer said.

"He was upset about being incarcerated," Troyer said. "He was just targeting cops."

Police said they believe Clemmons could be in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood, which was cordoned off Sunday, the Times said.

Police entered a trailer where they believed Clemmons could be hiding but found no one.

Clemmons, who has a lengthy criminal history in Arkansas and Washington, was released from in Pierce County a week ago. He was facing a charge of raping a child, the Times said. Family members described him as being in a deteriorating mental state.

Two employees and other customers were unharmed, Troyer said, adding, "Just the law enforcement officers were targeted."

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Reactor's water cooler spiked with tritium

KAIGA, India, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- An Indian energy commission official said someone at a nuclear power plant deliberately put radioactive tritium in a water cooler.

About 40 or 50 employees who drank from the cooler on Nov. 24 outside the reactor area at the Kaiga plant in Uttara Kannada district in India had to be treated at a hospital for increased levels of radiation, the Press Trust of India and the Times of India reported Sunday.

"Somebody deliberately put the tritiated water vials into a drinking water cooler. Therefore, we are investigating who is behind the malevolent act," Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar said.

He said whoever is responsible will be punished under the Atomic Energy Act and other laws.

"The staff who had access to vials and the various points in the chain where the vials could have been diverted are being examined,'' an official said.

The government is investigating whether the act was meant to be sabotage or if a disgruntled employee had played a prank.

"The whole area has computer-accessed control. So in the course of time, we will be able to narrow down on the person who did the mischief,'' said S. K. Jain, chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corp. of India, which operates the plant.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is used in research, neutron generators and fusion reactors, the newspaper said.

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Medvedev unveils Euro security treaty

BRUSSELS, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has submitted a draft "European security treaty" designed to overcome the Cold War's legacy, European Union officials say.

The proposed pact, which Medvedev delivered Sunday to NATO, all European countries, the former Soviet republics, the United States and Canada, puts an emphasis on collective security for signatories, in which if one is attacked, the others would come to its aid, the EUobserver reported.

The publication said the Russian proposal also commits signatories to refrain from "any other actions significantly affecting the security of any other parties," but doesn't specify what those actions might be. Analysts suggest the wording could be prompted by Russian concerns over the proposed enlargement of NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia, which the Kremlin views as a threat to its security.

Part of the treaty includes language stressing that "no one state, and no one international organization could strengthen their security at the expense of other countries and organizations," the EUobserver said.

NATO has reportedly said its foreign ministers and their Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, are likely to discuss the Medvedev proposals Friday during a NATO-Russia council meeting in Brussels.

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Pirates hijack Greek-flagged oil tanker

BRUSSELS, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A 300,000-ton Greek crude oil tanker has been seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean off the Seychelles Islands, European Union officials say.

The tanker MV Maran Centaurus, with a crew of 28, was hijacked Sunday 600 nautical miles northeast of the islands, the EU anti-piracy naval task force said. It reported the tanker's crew includes 16 Filipinos, nine Greeks, two Ukrainians and a Romanian, who were sailing from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to New Orleans when the ship was seized.

The vessel is now heading on a course toward Harardheere or Hobyo in Somalia, EU officials said.

The attack on the Maran Centaurus appears to be only the second ever on an oil tanker, following last year's hijacking of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, and is triggering concerns an environmental disaster could happen if the vessel leaks, crashes, is run aground or becomes the focus of a firefight, The Times of London reported.

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Impartial jurors scarce for terror trial

NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The debate is on over whether enough impartial New Yorkers could be found to serve on a jury for accused Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists, analysts say.

Most city residents, when asked about a trial for admitted Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other accused terrorists now being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, responded they could not be impartial, The Washington Post reported Monday.

"Oh, no. No. I have no impartiality," Laura Stein, 45, told the newspaper. "It was the worst day of my life. And I didn't lose anybody."

"I say hang 'em," added Georgianna Neller, a state Health Department investigator, pointing to the hole where the New York's World Trade Center used to be. "Hang 'em right over there. Put the girder up."

But Anthony Barkow, a former federal prosecutor who runs the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University, told the Post impartial jurors can be found.

"Anybody who was in New York on 9/11, or D.C., was touched personally by it," he said. "But there are different levels of that, and there are different levels of how people have subsequently dealt with that."

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