LYNNWOOD, Wash. - Garry Wegner cannot believe his former student, 41-year-old Christopher Monfort is what police call a "domestic terrorist."
"I was absolutely shocked," he said.
Wegner knows Monfort as a hardworking and studious man, focused on his academics and trying to make a difference.
"What went so tragically wrong, I have no clue," said Wegner.
Now police say Monfort is linked to the killing of Seattle Police Officer Tim Brenton.
Inside Monfort's apartment, police found high-powered rifles, ingredients to make bombs and angry written manifestos against law enforcement.
For two years Christopher Monfort came to Highline Community College, taking classes with Garry Wegner in the justice program.
Wegner says most of his students planned to go into law enforcement careers, but not Monfort.
"He told me he was real excited about grad school because he had decided to become a college professor in history with an emphasis on constitutional law," said Wegner.
Wegner teaches justice administration classes at Highline, but his career in law enforcement goes back even further. He is the retired deputy director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the state agency that operates police academies.
To know his former student could be involved in killing a police officer is difficult for him to face.
"Most to my professional life I've supported law enforcement and now I've found out that I actually educated a cop killer, if the allegations are true, it's probably the most emotional bind I've been in," he said.
Now his former student is under police guard and Wegner is left to wonder if there was anything he could have done to prevent this tragedy.
"I haven't cried over students, but I cried on Friday night," he said.
Wegner last spoke with Monfort about five months ago. Monfort told him he was mentoring at-risk kids at King County juvenile hall.
yorkstergirl said on November 8, 2009 at 10:32 PM
How frighteningly normal this "animal" appears! I would have been relieved if this honest, clean cut, nice looking gentleman would have stopped to help me with a flat tire in the mall parking lot. Looks are deceiving, and as I have always told my children, love many but trust few! So glad to know that the smug, elitist smile this jerk portrayed in all of his photos has been rearranged permanently by the SPD!!
bigpackage said on November 9, 2009 at 10:37 AM
hmmm, I wonder why the professor decided to speak out? Do you think he is in the classroom droning on about how good our cops are, and how we should support them? Or, and this is more likely in my mind, is he in the classroom teaching students that our criminal justice system is abhorrent, that cops are just running around busting the wrong guys, creating injustice? Was he making derogatory and inflaming comments regarding the police, and now that a student feels that there is nothing he can do with his frustrations, and has actually become a domestic terrorist, this professor feels he better come out swinging? He sure sounds like a 'richard' to me!
rhyder said on November 9, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Hey "Big package" Great user name, because you sound like one!