But it will remain unclear for months if Satterberg can actually pursue capital punishment for the crime committed on Halloween. The suspect, Christopher Monfort, remains hospitalized at Harborview, a few blocks east of the press conference, where King County Sheriff's deputies are guarding him. Monfort is recovering from gunshots wounds inflicted by police who were trying to apprehend him. While Satterberg says Monfort is “currently in stable condition and is expected to recover to face these charges,” proceedings will run into next year.

Defense attorneys for Monfort and prosecutors must consider mitigating factors in the primary crime—such as an insanity defense—before Satterberg can recommend that a jury consider the death penalty. Normally the decision is made by the arraignment, currently schedule on November 24, but Monfort’s arraignment could be pushed back because he hospitalized. Defense attorneys also typically ask for extensions, says prosecutors office spokesman Ian Goodhew, who estimates that the decision to seek the death penalty probably won’t be reached until March of 2010.

“We have never seen anything like this,” said Satterberg, repeatedly noting that most criminals hide from police instead of confronting them. He says police and families can "relax a little" knowing they have the suspect who was “trying to confront and kill as many police officers as possible” in a “his deadly war on the police.”

Prosecutors are also charging Monfort with three counts of attempted murder—trying to kill Brenton’s partner Britt Sweeney, trying to fire bomb officers in a south Seattle police car lot, and pulling the trigger on officers trying to apprehend him at his Tukwila apartment (Monfort had forgotten to changing the round, possibly saving the officers' lives)—and one count of arson.

Satterberg credited police work and a particularly valuable tip from one of Monfort’s neighbors, who noticed that a car similar to the sedan police were searching for had been "all of sudden been covered up by a tarp." Inside Monfort’s home, investigators found a bomb with a fuse linked to the kitchen stove and other explosives. In charging documents, Monfort’s identity was linked with the Brenton killing by an American flag bandana left at the scene of the crime, and an American flag left behind at the arson of the police facility in south Seattle. DNA linked both items to Monfort. Ballistics tests also show that a rifle found at Monfort’s home left its signature on the bullets recovered at the shooting.