WESTLAND, Mich. -- Innocent pleas were entered Saturday for a 69-year-old woman and two of her sons charged with killing three police officers who went to a suburban Detroit motel to serve the woman a bad-check warrant.
'We're not guilty, we were just defending ourselves,' shouted a chained and handcuffed Alberta Easter as she was led into 36th District Court for arraignment. 'They attacked us.'
Easter's sons, William Lemons, 43 and Roy Lemons Jr., 47, were silent as they were brought by State Police troopers into the courtroom.
A third son, George Lemons, 46, also was charged with murder in the 10-hour ordeal Friday at the Bungalow Motel in Inkster, but he was hospitalized for kidney dialysis. Court officials said he will be arraigned Monday.
District Court Judge James Garber entered innocent pleas on behalf of Easter and her two sons and ordered them held without bond in the Wayne County Jail pending a preliminary hearing July 22 in District Court in Inkster.
As Garber explained the charges, Easter spoke up often to proclaim their innocence. Garber said, 'All I'm here for today is to explain the charges to you.'
'Oh,' said Easter, who kept shaking her head during the hearings, 'Thank you, your honor.'
As the defendents left the court Easter said, 'This is all political ... They jumped us. I'm scarred.' When she was asked who shot the officers, she only said, 'They shot each other.'
At an afternoon news conference Saturday, State Police Sgt. Skip Ward disputed Easter's claim that her family was attacked.
'She had no physical signs of abuse or injury,' Ward told reporters. 'The best we can find out right now is that Sgt. (Ira) Parker did walk up to her, put his hand on her elbow as if to escort her and say 'come with me.' It was apparently at that point in time that the gunfire erupted.
'Apparently she had some real fears that were not real as far as the officers were concerned or what would be considered real,' Ward said.
The four each were charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of officer Daniel Dubiel, 36, rookie patrolman Clay Hoover, 24, and their supervisor, Parker, 41. They also were charged with firearms violations. Roy and William Lemons were additionally charged with intent to commit murder against motel employees.
The Wayne County Coroners' Office determined the officers died of multiple gunshot wounds with shots fired from four different weapons, Ward said.
The officers were gunned down late Thursday at the Bungalow Motel in Inkster. After the initial volley of gunfire, the suspects held authorities at bay for 10 hours with a 1,000-round barrage from automatic weapons.
Authorities said they still had not determined why the assailants reacted violently to the attempt to serve an arrest warrant for Easter, who allegededly wrote a $286.40 bad check to a car rental company.
'We do know that the officers' attention was focused on one individual (Roy Lemons) in the room that they were talking with,' Ward said. 'It would appear that from the information we have, that all three of the officers were listening to what the man was trying to say.'
The officers were met with 'a volley of shots,' Buckley said. 'From all indications it appears highly likely that the initial volley was the fatal one.'
The four suspects then barricaded themselves in adjacent rooms 105 and 106, Buckley said, keeping other police away with sporadic fire from automatic and semi-automatic weapons while the fate of the three officers was unknown.
