HARTFORD — - When police officers Michael Bodner and Karen Spearman first encountered Dwayne Powell Wednesday, the exchange was calm enough that Powell handed over his driver's license.

But the situation changed in an instant, according to a police report made available Thursday, leading to a chase and ultimately Powell's arrest on charges of shooting Bodner twice with a .380-caliber handgun.

Powell, 26, was arraigned in Superior Court Thursday on charges of attempted murder, first-degree assault and assault on a police officer, as well as other weapons and drug charges.

The officers, both in uniform and in a marked police car, were in the Blue Hills neighborhood following up on a series of burglaries, according to the report and Chief Daryl K. Roberts. The two officers stopped Powell on the street, and he initially gave them his license.

But Powell, who got out of prison Aug. 27, snatched his license back from Spearman and started running west on Manchester Street, then north on Salisbury Street, according to the report.

Bodner, a 28-year-old former Marine, caught Powell and began to struggle with him just west of the Salisbury Street-Tower Avenue intersection. Spearman saw Powell push away from Bodner, then pull out a handgun and fire twice at Bodner, she later told detectives. Bodner suffered gunshot wounds to his upper right arm and upper right thigh.

Spearman fired two rounds at Powell, but didn't hit him. Powell fled west on Tower Avenue, then north on Cornwall Street. Spearman reported the shooting on her radio and police officers from throughout the city converged on the neighborhood.

Officers tracked Powell to the rear yard of 89 Litchfield St. Police said Powell was taken into custody "after a significant struggle." Police said they found the .380-caliber handgun used to shoot Bodner in the rear yard of 85 Litchfield St.

Bodner was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in a police car. He had surgery, was released later in the day and is now recovering at home.

Powell said little at his arraignment Thursday before Judge Carl Taylor. His left hand was bandaged and he was still wearing a hospital gown. He also had stitches above his left eye. About 25 of his friends and relatives were in the courtroom.

Hartford State's Attorney Gail Hardy urged the judge to increase Powell's bail to $5 million, citing Powell's criminal record and the strength of the state's case. Hardy told the judge that Bodner "was on duty in full uniform and readily identifiable as a police officer when he sustained gunshot wounds to his arm and leg."

Powell was born in Jamaica and is now a U.S. citizen., a bail commissioner told the judge. Powell's public defender, Judith Wildfeuer, urged a lower bail. The judge, citing the danger Powell poses to the community, opted for $3.5 million and ordered Powell back to court Nov. 30.

Outside court, Powell's relatives and friends were trying to raise bail. One bondsman said the family had $100,000. The typical fee for a bondsmen for a $3.5 million bail is more than $260,000.

Several of those who came to support Powell struck a defiant tone outside the courthouse. One said police were at fault for the shooting.

"There is a reason for [the shooting]," the woman said. "There is a guy walking down the street and you just come rush-up on him. Come on now. You shoot anybody who runs up on you — this is America."

Roberts said the officers were stopping and interviewing people who were out late as part of the burglary investigation.

Powell was sentenced in 2003 to nine months in prison and five years of probation for fleeing a motor vehicle accident that resulted in serious injury or death. According to court records, Powell violated the terms of that probation and was sentenced to two years in prison.

SEATTLE — Christopher Monfort waged a "one-man war" against law enforcement starting with the firebombing of four police vehicles and continuing even after the fatal shooting of a Seattle officer on Halloween, a prosecutor said Thursday in charging him with a crime that could bring the death penalty.

"This case is unique in that Monfort deliberately planned to confront police and kill as many officers as he could," King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg said. "He was planning to make a final armed stand should he be discovered."

Satterberg charged Monfort, 41, with aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Officer Timothy Brenton as Brenton sat in his cruiser discussing a traffic stop with a trainee named Britt Sweeney, who was grazed by a bullet.

The crime is punishable by life without release or execution. Satterberg has 30 days from Monfort's arraignment to decide whether to seek the death penalty, but such decisions are typically delayed to give defense attorneys more time to prepare.

Monfort was charged with one count of arson and three counts of attempted first-degree murder. The latter charges stem from the wounding of Sweeney, an alleged attempt to kill officers during the arson nine days earlier, and attempts to shoot police who approached him outside his apartment in suburban Tukwila last week.

Monfort ran from the sergeant and two other homicide detectives, then produced a handgun, which clicked but didn't fire when he pulled the trigger, Satterberg said. The gun was loaded, but Monfort had neglected to put a round in the chamber, Satterberg said.

"This oversight saved the life of the police officer, who was only a few feet away," he said.

Monfort made a desperate dash for his apartment door and the detectives fired, striking him in the cheek and the stomach, the prosecutor said. He remains at Harborview Medical Center in satisfactory condition and is expected to recover. One of Monfort's lawyers, Julie Lawry, said she has been to the hospital to see him but declined to comment further.

Inside Monfort's apartment, police said they found a terrifying arsenal: three rifles, including the one used to kill Brenton, and a pistol-grip shotgun, as well as several bombs consisting of propane bottles wrapped with duct tape, nails protruding. Some had very short fuses, indicating Monfort could light them and throw them at police, and another had a fuse sitting on the heating element of his kitchen stove, authorities said.

Stacks of automobile tires in the apartment could have provided a bunker in a shootout.

No clear motive has emerged, but Satterberg said that Monfort left fliers discussing police brutality when the police vehicles were bombed at a maintenance yard Oct. 22, some of which referred to "these deaths" - as though the bombing was expected to kill officers.

A fire in a mobile command center at the yard was set first, and bombs underneath cruisers went off nine minutes later, as police and emergency officers responded.

Stuck through the roof of one cruiser in the yard was a large hunting knife, a small American flag attached to the handle. Police have said the flag bore Monfort's DNA, as did an American flag bandanna left behind when Brenton was killed.

Monfort studied criminal justice at Highline Community College and the University of Washington, and police believe he had recently been fired from a job as a security guard.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Monfort's arraignment is set for Nov. 24, but will be delayed if he remains in the hospital.

By Jeff C.
It is noon. The remembrances of September 11th are televised.
I remember. Soon we learned the terrible truth and saw it unfold. It is burned in my memory. The images of our fellow Americans jumping to their deaths to escape the flames are as vivid today as then.

Some say that we must move forward, life goes on. To them I say life does not go on for those murdered nor their survivors. Their generation and that of their children is stricken for life...life does not go on, they simply endure the bitter unending loss of their loved ones.

The images and history of September 11th must be replayed every day and taught to our children. Not as a political exercise but as a statement of the reality of existence. There are those in the world who would murder us all if they could do so, There is only one answer to them, find them and destroy them along with their ability to carry out their mission of death.

Our parents fought WWII to preserve our freedom and liberty and had they not prevailed, the world would have been victimized by totalitarian meglomaniacs and untold millions more would have perished.

Would anyone but a fool argue that we should have capitulated to Hitler,Tojo, and Mussolini?

Nearly a half million Americans died doing so. One was my Uncle whom I would never know. Their deaths were not in vain.

Today I remember our New York Brother Police Officers and Firefighters who looked death in the eye and did not falter, the fight for Flight 93 and the men and women who chose to fight to the death than give into the terrorist scum, the service men and women at the Pentagon who fought through the flames and all who were on those doomed aircraft.

Yet every day I carry on my uniform a pin that is red, white, and blue with the numbers 9 -11- 01 and the words "never forget".

I will not.

Stay safe and ready.