Sheridan Police Officer Killed In Line Of Duty, Suspect Barricades Himself

This story first appeared on Cowboy State Daily.

SHERIDAN — Law enforcement and SWAT agencies from around the state were still in a standoff with a barricaded man as of 11 p.m. Tuesday evening, about 12 hours after the suspect reportedly killed a Sheridan Police Department officer.

The suspect was still alive and walking around in his home with an AR rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other, according to scanner traffic.

Sergeant Down

Sgt. Nevada Krinkee was shot and killed Tuesday morning while trying to serve a trespass warning on a man near the intersection of 5^th and Val Vista streets, SPD said in a statement.

The suspect — identified in an earlier be-on-the-lookout report as William Lowery, 46 — fled and barricaded himself in a home near 6^th Street and North Sheridan Ave.

Police and SWAT teams surrounded Lowery, bringing at least one armored Bearcat vehicle to the scene, along with irritant gas grenades and projectiles, drones and surveillance robots, and spotlights.

Agents flooded the home with gas and light throughout the afternoon and evening. They broke windows and ripped the garage apart to expose Lowery to surveillance and gas.

Just before dark, someone inside the home fired toward law enforcement agents. One of the agents was sitting on top of the Bearcat when the shot “popped,” reportedly.

The following is a summation of Tuesday’s police scanner traffic, interviews and observations on scene.

Snipers Are Here

The standoff began early Tuesday afternoon and persisted until well after dark.

“Snipers are here,” announced an agent at 4:15 p.m., according to Sheridan police scanner traffic.

By 4:55, agents were coordinating the deployment of tri-chamber gas grenades into the home, including via an open or breached door.

“He’s on the phone again,” said an agent at 4:56, referring to the suspect. “We can’t tell if he’s being affected (by the gas).”

“He just hung up,” an agent added two minutes later.

By 5:11, the suspect apparently was not answering the agents’ phone calls. They contemplated sending in “another drone,” then coordinated more gas launches.

At 5:32 the agents discussed using “ferret” rounds – gas projectiles that can shoot through a wall.

‘Shots Out!’

At 5:39, the agents started flooding the two-story house with light, blasting spotlights into the windows in at least three locations.

An agent on the receiving side of the wind announced his men would need to draw back or mask up due to the gas.

“Shots out! Shots out!” yelled an agent nine minutes before 6 p.m. “Came from the top window, the second story, ‘four’ side.”

“Everybody OK?” asked another agent.

“That’s affirm,” came the answer, establishing that no officers were hit.

“That sounded kind of like a larger caliber to me,” said one agent.

“I agree with that – it sounded like a rifle shot,” said another.

One agent was sitting on top of the Bearcat turret when the shot sounded. He got into the armored vehicle with a few other “boys” soon after that, he said.

The officers deployed more gas into the upper floor and reorganized their cover.

The sky went dark.

‘If He’s Got A Rifle Deep In The Shadows’

At 6:09, agents confirmed an inconveniently parked Chevy Avalanche belongs to the suspect. They took about four minutes and pushed it out of their way.

A bottom-floor door between the house’s kitchen and garage swung open at 6:28.

One agent said he saw the suspect walk toward the front of the house. He described the suspect as a bald white male with a black mask over his face.

“He had a AR (rifle)” one agent said.

“Just remember guys, if he’s got a rifle deep in the shadows of that house, you cannot see him,” said an agent. “Do not expose yourself.”

• A tactical officer aims a rifle from atop an armored vehicle Tuesday night during a standoff in Sheridan with a man suspected of killing a police officer. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
• A group of Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers at the scene of a standoff in Sheridan. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
• Residents of Sheridan, Wyoming, watch from a distance as an hours-long standoff with a man suspected of killing a local police officer unfolds Tuesday. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
• Residents of Sheridan, Wyoming, watch from a distance as an hours-long standoff with a man suspected of killing a local police officer unfolds Tuesday. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
• Law enforcement from Sheridan, Gillette and other Wyoming jurisdictions have the area around a Sheridan, Wyoming, home blocked off Tuesday evening during a standoff with a man suspected of killing a Sheridan police officer earlier in the day. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)

Arrow leftArrow right

‘Can’t Trust Anyone’

Meanwhile, college- and high-school age youths gathered at the scene, determined to see it through to its end. They marveled at a homicide and shootout in the generally-peaceful 19,000-person town – and just one month after another Sheridan homicide.   

Many of the youths said they know the suspect.

“My friends, like, literally have been inside this dude’s house before to go look at his snakes and, like, they never killed us,” one person on scene told Cowboy State Daily. “It like goes to show … you can’t trust anyone.”

Calling His Girlfriend

Agents reported at 7:14 p.m. that they had “completely ripped open” the garage so they could see into it, and they contemplated breaking open a window just above the garage.

“We just found out the male is on the phone with a girlfriend right now,” a female agent announced at 7:17.

By 7:45, the suspect had moved into a small room adjacent to the garage – possibly a pantry – while still carrying his rifle.

Agents considered whether the boom on the Bearcat had enough reach to breach that room, but they thought not.

Something Banged

Law enforcement negotiators had developed a plan with the suspect at 8:10 to have him come out with his hands in sight, but the suspect didn’t follow through.

Agents tried to send a reconnaissance robot into the basement (that mission later failed) at about 9:14. As the bot trundled in, a female agent heard “some kind of bang.”

Another agent heard it too. The female said she did not think the robot caused the bang. Another officer agreed.

“Whatever noise you heard definitely did not come from that robot,” he said.

After the bang, references to the barricaded suspect dwindled for an hour. Some officers coordinated private, off-radio phone calls with one another.

But just before 11 p.m., an agent said he saw the suspect cross from the kitchen, through the living room with an AR rifle in one hand and a shotgun in another.

Sincere Condolences

As news of Krinkee’s death spread, the Wyoming law enforcement community reacted.

Former Sheridan County Sheriff Allen Thompson, who now serves as executive director for the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, extended his “sincere condolences” to Sgt. Krinkee’s family, and to all law enforcement personnel, in a Tuesday phone call with Cowboy State Daily.  

Thompson retired from being sheriff in 2022. His tenure overlapped with Krinkee’s, who was with the adjacent Sheridan Police Department for six and a half years.

Law enforcement agencies and officers across Wyoming mourned Krinkee’s loss with statements of grief and condolence, and they posted photos of Krinkee’s badge.  

Glenrock Police Department included a reference to Matthew 5:9, which says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”

First For Sheridan Police Department

The national Officer Down Memorial Page has logged 62 line-of-duty deaths for Wyoming law enforcement agents stretching back to 1877 — 13 years before Wyoming became a state.

Of those, 37 deaths were due to direct gunfire, two to inadvertent gunfire, three to stabbings, one from vehicular assault, and the rest from various crashes, accidents and medical events. Three of them were K-9 police dogs: two of those died by vehicle strikes and one by heat stroke.

Including the dogs, Wyoming has averaged roughly one line-of-duty death every two years and four months.  

Tuesday’s incident was the first line-of-duty death in the history of the Sheridan Police Department.

There have been two line-of-duty deaths for Sheridan County as a whole before Tuesday, both out of the Sheriff’s Department.

Those were Underhsheriff William H. Veach, who died from inadvertent gunfire June 13, 1914, and Undersheriff William S. McPherren, who was shot to death Oct. 7, 1921, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.

Krinkee’s death is also the first homicide of an officer since June 26, 1997, when three Wyoming State Penitentiary inmates stabbed Wyoming Department of Corrections Cpl. Wayne Martinez, 27, to death during an escape attempt. The suspects fled in a truck, but other officers shot at them at an exterior fence. They survived and were convicted of Martinez’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

Cowboy State Daily reporter Pat Maio also contributed to this report from Sheridan.

Clair McFarland can be reached at Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com and Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.