The Murder Suspect - What we know so far

The Seattle Times has added significant new information to their story about the suspect in Officer Brenton's murder, who was shot by police yesterday in Tukwila.

He was educated, having graduated from UW in March of 2008 with a degree in criminal justice. And he was part of a scholars program that was preparing him for post-graduate work. It was there that he worked on a paper about the use of jury nullification as a way to help balance the criminal justice system.

A former community college instructor said he was very smart and a natural leader:

"He did very, very well interacting with the other students in my class," said Wegner, who spent 20 years as the deputy director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the organization that trains many of the state's law enforcement officers.

"He always seemed to be a natural leader, and people would gravitate to him. He put in a lot of work and did well academically. He said it was because he finally found something that interested him — the field of criminal justice."

He lived in Tukwila, so he wasn't from the neighborhood, and according to the Times his mother currently lives in Alaska, and he has personally lived in California and Alaska in addition to Washington State.

But he was familiar with the neighborhood, having spent time volunteering at the Youth Services Center at 12th & Alder:

"He was volunteering his Fridays down at juvy hall, trying to get kids on the straight and narrow," Wegner said. "He wanted to try and get them out of the system before they became adults."

A friend of his mother can't believe he could be a suspect:

She said as a longtime family friend she was mystified that Monfort could be considered a suspect.

"I don't get this. People that run around and kill cops have tons and tons of other stuff in their record, and Chris had no gang stuff, I know that."

She said Monfort was an only child and had not married. She did not know anything about his father. "That was a long time ago."

SeattleCrime.com is also discussing a theory for the motive in the crime. A commenter there found that he had a very recent ticket in Seattle for lack of insurance, and that ticket may have cost him his job as a security guard.

We're expecting a press conference from SPD later today around noon. We'll be there with more updates when it happens.