Colorado's top prison official Tom Clements was shot to death Tuesday, March 19, as he opened the front door to his home in Monument, according to the Huffington Post.
Clements execution-style slaying comes in the wake of the Jan. 31 assassination of Texas prosecutor Mark Hasse as he exited his vehicle in the parking lot of the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office.
Scott Burns of the National District Attorneys Association said their have been 11 prosecutors killed in the last 50 years.
Investigators don't know yet if Clements position as an executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections might have played a role in this week's shooting. Law enforcement officials say they are not ruling out the possibility of it being either a random shooting or work-related.
Clements carried out a variety of functions including requesting execution chemicals and speaking to legislators about security issues.
Officials would not comment as to whether or not Clements had security at his home.
Security was increased for other Colorado state officials including Gov. John Hickenlooper who visited with reporters at the Capitol before signing several bills placing new restrictions on firearms.
Are prosecutors and other law enforcement officials in greater risk of being murdered away from their offices now?
Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara's District Attorney's Office in California said attacks on officials are increasingly taking place away the office "which makes sense, because everyone is hardening up their facilities."
Investigators are searching for a Lincoln, Cadillac or another late model car which was seen outside Clements' home around the time of the murder Tuesday, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office.
Officials are also seeking a woman seen speed-walking near Clements' home shortly before the shooting.
Hasse's former boss in Texas Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland said that people in his line of work are going to have to get better about protecting themselves away from work and being vigilant for possible future attacks.
Authorites in Texas still have not made an arrrest in the Mark Hasse case. Hasse is the first Lone Star State prosecutor to be murdered since Fort Worth prosecutor Chris Marshall was shot to death inside a Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth.
His murder resulted in the isntallation of electronic monitoring devices at courthouses around the country to prevent people from bring firearms to courtrooms.
But the concern for safety for law enforcement officials seems to have dramatically shifted away from the courthouses to the homes and other places away from the courtroom in the wake of the murders of Clements and Hasse.
One retired law enforcement official said he has a security system around his home including dogs, guns, a sensor alert system and cameras outside his home.
As for the most recent case, Clements worked three decades in the Missouri prison system before coming to Colorado in 2011. One of his major accomplishments in his new state was to review Colorado's solitarly confinement system. He lived in an upscale neighborhood with two-story houses and evergreen trees known as Black Forest.
Neighbors slept with shotguns after hearing of Clements shocking death.
Clements death comes only a week after he denied a request by a Saudi national to serve out the remainder of a Colorado prison sentence in Saudi Arabia.
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