“Maurice Clemmons, the Lakewood cop killer, may have walked the streets due to confused record keeping in Washington state.” So reports Piper Scott in the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Liberty Live blog. It’s another example of the great investigative work being done by state conservative think tanks. Here’s more of Scott’s story:

According to documents provided to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation by Washington State Department of Corrections employee Sheralyn Andrews, the DOC number and the Washington state identification numbers assigned to Clemmons got mixed up with another offender whose file had been closed in December 2005. The other offender, Terry Gene Hamilton, had been under supervision after a conviction for burglary.
One document, a DOC warrant for Clemmons’ arrest dated August 20, 2009, has Clemmons using Hamilton’s name as an alias. The warrant associates Clemmons’ Washington identification number with Hamilton.
Another document, a Washington State Criminal History Record with Clemmons’ identification number, identifies the offender as Hamilton.
According to DOC records, Clemmons was a 37-year-old black man, while Hamilton is a 58-year-old white man.
Several DOC community corrections officers said that transpositions like this, while rare, aren’t unknown. The CCOs spoke on the condition that their identities not be released since they’ve been directed not to speak with journalists. One officer said the DOC records division is at fault because they create the identification numbers.
Andrews also alleged that when DOC switched offender management tracking systems in July 2008, some 3,000 felons fell through the cracks and that DOC has no idea where they are. “They’re floating around out there somewhere,” she said.

3,000! That’s a small army. Makes you want to vacation in Seattle, no?