SEATTLE — The suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a coffee shop was not found this morning in the Seattle home where he was thought to have been holed up overnight, likely wounded from his bloody encounter with the officers.

Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the location of Maurice Clemmons was not known, and it's possible he still could be in the neighborhood. Troyer also said people who know Clemmons told investigators he had been shot in the torso.

"If he didn't get a ride out of there, he could still be in the area," Troyer said.

Troyer said warrants for first-degree murder have been issued against Clemmons, 37, who is accused of shooting four officers from the Tacoma suburb of Lakewood on Sunday morning as they were working in the coffee house. Pierce County, where the shootings happened, is the lead agency investigating the case.

Police surrounded the house late Sunday. Before heavily armed police officers determined shortly before dawn that Clemmons was not in the house, negotiators spent hours trying to communicate with him, using loudspeakers, explosions and even a robot sent into the house. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood.