The man suspected of killing two Iowa police officers was a familiar face to law enforcement, convicted of minor crimes and expelled from a high school football game last month after waving a Confederate battle flag.
Scott Michael Greene, 46, pleaded guilty to harassment charges two years ago and was put on probation, according to court records. In 2001 he was charged with assault for throwing a soft drink can out the window of a vehicle in a case that was later dropped, records show.
A father of at least three, Greene has been forcibly removed more than once from public school property for unspecified reasons, police said.
"We're familiar with Mr Greene from our years of service," Ross McCarty, the police chief of Urbandale, Iowa, told a news conference.
Urbandale is an affluent suburb of Des Moines and the site where one of the police officers was slain. The other was slain in Des Moines.
"Most of the officers that have been in the city have some understanding of Mr Greene," McCarty said. "They've taken trips to his house or delivered service to him. Never to anything of this extent, though."
Greene, a resident of Urbandale, was taken into custody hours after police said he shot and killed two officers sitting in their patrol cars three kilometres apart apart at 1am on Wednesday.
What led to the shootings remained unclear.
Last month, Greene complained that he was treated unfairly by officers at the football game. He posted a video on YouTube that he titled "Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School."
The 10-minute video, apparently shot by Greene, shows several police officers removing him from the school football stadium and listening to his complaint that he was assaulted by black fans at the game.
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