UPDATE: A lawyer for the estate of Tina Griswold also intends to file a $58 million $48 million claim against the county, according to paperwork just obtained by The News Tribune.

PREVIOUS: The families of three Lakewood police officers slain last November have taken the first step toward suing Pierce County, preparing a formal claim that seeks millions in damages.

The claims have not been filed officially, but The News Tribune has learned that it is expected Friday.

The attorney representing the estates of Sgt. Mark Renninger and officers Ronald Owens and Greg Richards – Robert Christie of Seattle – told The News Tribune this afternoon that the families are seeking accountability from the Sheriff’s Department.

“The claims seek to bring justice and call attention to a problem that needs to be addressed,” Christie said.

Relatives of Renninger, Owens and Richards contend that Pierce County law enforcement leaders could and should have done more to stop Arkansas parolee Maurice Clemmons before he shot the officers to death in a Parkland coffee shop, according to copies of their claims obtained by The News Tribune today.

The claims cite a string of phone calls Clemmons made from the Pierce County Jail last fall. During those conversations, Clemmons talked of killing police when he got out. The recordings were released to the public in January. Clemmons made general threats, not mentioning specific officers or a specific department.

While calls from the jail are recorded, jail officials do not monitor them regularly.

They should have, the officers’ families contend in their claims.

“This catastrophe, the worst law enforcement tragedy in the history of Washington State, was completely preventable,” the claims state.

Public scrutiny in the wake of the November shootings focused on Clemmons’ movements in and out of the jail between May and November 2009. Questions centered on whether the legal system failed to keep him behind bars.

He bailed out of jail three times while facing a charge of second-degree child rape.

Clemmons had prior convictions for robbery and theft in Arkansas, where he was paroled in 2001 after his prison sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The child-rape charge in Washington represented a possible third-strike offense, but Pierce County prosecutors had not had the chance to argue the point in court when Clemmons bailed out in November.

County and state officials in Washington have criticized their counterparts in Arkansas for refusing to take the legal steps that would have allowed Clemmons to be held in jail without bail.

Thursday, it was unclear whether the officer’s families intend to file similar claims against the Washington Department of Corrections or the state of Arkansas.

UPDATE: The claims, which were signed by the officers’ relatives on Wednesday, total $134 million.

The estates of Renninger and Richards seek $58 million each, while the estate of Owens seeks $18 million.

The families contend that Pierce County knew Clemmons was dangerous and had threatened to kill jail staff during one of his bookings.

The county should have made that threat – and others he made during recorded phone calls – known to the state Department of Corrections, which could have found Clemmons to be in violation of his community supervision from Arkansas and ordered him held in jail without bail, the claims contend.

“Further, the information would have been critical to the Pierce County prosecutors and the Pierce County Superior Court judges involved in the bail hearings for Clemmons,” the claims state.

“Using the most basic law enforcement skills – the art of listening and reporting – Pierce County could have determined that Clemmons was engaging in criminal behavior while in jail, threatening the life of jail personnel, intimidating critical witnesses in a child rape and formulating a specific plan to execute as many police officers as possible upon his release,” the claims continue.

MORE: Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer’s reaction to the claims:

“We’ve got the claims and we believe that they’re meritless.”

“We never let him out of jail – he made bail.”

“There’s no way that we’ll be able to listen to all the tape-recorded calls in the jail,” Troyer said. “We never have been able to, and we never will be able to.”

The jail houses 1,400 inmates on average. To monitor every phone call would take an estimated 50 full-time employees and $45 million, Troyer said.

Threats against police are common among inmates, he added, calling them “ a daily occurrence.”

“If you locked up everybody that threatened the police, there wouldn’t be enough room.”

Clemmons’ phone calls fell into the same category, Troyer said. If county officials had heard them before the shootings, they could have ordered a mental-health evaluation for Clemmons, and little more.

“And he did get a mental health evaluation, which he passed,” Troyer said.

The claim is a bitter pill for the sheriff’s office, which raised money on behalf of the slain officers, led the manhunt for Clemmons and arrested his alleged confederates. Prosecutors are still building the criminal case against those parties.

“It’s really kind of a kick in the head,” Troyer said. “We’ve done so much for these families and we’re gonna continue to do things for these families – but at the same token we have a criminal case right now with seven defendants.”

“Where is everybody’s priority out here? It’s obviously about the money. No good deed goes unpunished.”

EVEN MORE: Troyer just sent out a news release regarding the claims:

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has been notified that the families of the four Lakewood Police Officers murdered by Maurice Clemmons on November 29, 2009, will be filing a claim for damages against the Sheriff’s Department.

Our hearts go out to the families of the fallen officers. We believe that this terrible crime was the responsibility of one person who was assisted by multiple persons, all of whom were quickly identified and taken into custody by the Sheriff’s Department.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department did not take actions or neglect to take actions that in any way – directly or indirectly – contributed to the murder of the four Lakewood Police officers.

Our hearts continue to go out to the families of the officers we have lost.

Christie said this afternoon that police agencies exercise discretion every day in whom they investigate and monitor. Clemmons fit the profile of someone who needed to be watched closely, he said.

Efforts to reach Michael Hanbey, attorney for Officer Griswold, were not immediately successful. Hanbey last week filed a lawsuit on the behalf of Griswold’s estate against the seven people accused of helping Clemmons before or after the shootings.