If Maurice Clemmons killed those four police officers in Washington state, he had accomplices.

Clemmons, 37, may be the twisted trigger man, but he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to walk into a coffee shop Sunday in a Tacoma suburb and gun down four cops without help getting there.

Former governor and presidential contender Mike Huckabee has been in damage-control mode since the shootings, trying to diminish his role in the events that put Clemmons on the street.

And the streets never were safe with Clemmons free.

He made it clear by the time he was a teenager that he was trouble. Big trouble. By 1989, he was facing a 95-year sentence for multiple felony convictions in Arkansas.

After just 11 years in jail, then-Gov. Huckabee commuted the sentence to 47 years, making Clemmons eligible for parole. The parole board supported the 2000 release, along with a judge who said he believes in second chances.

Sound familiar?

When a Scott County judge sentenced one of the Quad-Cities’ most notorious criminals, Pachino Hill, to church, she said she did so because, “I’m all about one more chance.”

While many of us probably agree that second chances are reasonable, these are not second-chance cases. These are multiple, multiple-chance cases.

Clemmons penned some sob story from prison about how he’s a changed man, and Huckabee bought it. When Clemmons was put back in prison after violating his parole, he was again released after prosecutors dismissed additional felony charges.

He was flush in chances.

If Clemmons was the shooter, he is to blame. He made the choice to murder. Huckabee didn’t pull the trigger, nor did the judge or anyone else. But lots of people made it possible.

And now Huckabee says, “A system failed.” No. People failed. The system works when the people running it work.

Of the criminal justice system, he said, “… it failed miserably …” But not without him, it didn’t.

For those of us who do not work in “the system,” it is unfathomable that dangerous career criminals like Clemmons keep getting breaks. For instance, when he was released on bond six days before the officers were killed, he was let go after posting 10 percent of $150,000 bond.

Maybe the bond was appropriate for the charge and was in line with other cases. But how can we not pound our fists when we learn Clemmons had seven other pending felonies at the time? Didn’t that make him a flight risk?

More facts will come out in the days ahead.

What we know now is that Huckabee granted 1,033 clemencies in his 10 years as governor — more than twice as many as his three predecessors combined. And he was dinged heavily in the 2008 presidential campaign for having pardoned another felon who committed murder after his release.

Now Huckabee says we shouldn’t be talking about such things, and our thoughts should be focused solely on the officers’ families.

But what do you suppose they’re thinking about?

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.