SHERIDAN — As the sun began to peep over the horizon Friday, Sheridan began stirring to life.
At the East 5th and Val Vista street corner where Sgt. Nevada Krinkee was shot and killed Feb. 13, a iris-like flower with a touch of purple was visible that had been slipped into the snowy front yard of a home that the grief-stricken community sees as a daily reminder of what happened there.
The temperature was a balmy 40 degrees at sunrise, enough to begin melting the snow.
At Sheridan College, maintenance workers were already cordoning off the parking lot for the Krinkee family to park outside of the 1,800-seat Golden Dome for a public memorial service. Their spots are reserved near the door.
At 4 a.m., barricades had been placed across Main Street near the riverwalk renovation project at the corner of East Dow Street and Main Street where the town’s center is situated, with the two-story Wells Fargo building looming in the background.
At around 5:30 a.m., a steady stream of Sheridan police began pulling into the parking lot surrounded by barbed-wire fencing adjacent to their station.
Out front, a handful of troopers from the Wyoming Highway Patrol began pulling up at around the same time. They huddled briefly, catching up in their whispered conversations only a few feet from Krinkee’s police cruiser — No. 107 — was buried in flowers and signs of love and support written to his family.
Police Presence
By 7 a.m., Deputy Peter Hurdle with the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office in Cheyenne, had already been driving for an hour along Interstate 25, rushing to get to the graveside ceremony in Sheridan Municipal Cemetery where he will play taps for the Krinkee family.
Hurdle was driving from Wheatland, where he serves in the National Guard’s 67th Army Band.
Shortly after 1 p.m., he’ll be standing beside his fallen police officer brother trying to fight back tears as he plays.
The community’s surrounding hotels are packed with parked police cruisers, backed into their stalls as they are apt to do in case they have to rush out on an emergency. It’s a habit with how they park.
There are too many police in Sheridan this day to count. A thousand, maybe.
What’s really important, however, is that they hail from all corners of the state and elsewhere. Bozeman, Cheyenne, Evanston, Johnson County, Kemmerer, Meridian, Missola, Uinta and Yellowstone County. There were too many names to list.
The vehicles were parked wherever there was a hotel. Baymont Inn & Suites, Best Western, Fairfield, Hampton, Mill Inn and Sheraton. The lots were full near Interstate 25, near the college and in downtown.
Everyone’s come to gather in Sheridan for a reason many wished wasn’t true.
Sheridan Shows Out
Krinkee, 33, was killed when William Lowery, 46, reportedly shot him to death, then fled the scene. Lowery later barricaded himself in a house owned by a Sheridan woman near the corner of 7th Avenue and North Sheridan Street.
Lowrey died at the scene 32 hours later after a prolonged standoff. Police shot and killed him when he attempted to flee the scene.
Along nearby East 5th Street, the backhoe used to tear at the home where Lowery had barricaded himself was being used again to prepare a different piece of land for a new building — not connected with the one torn down Feb. 14.
As day finally broke just prior to 7 a.m. Friday, it became clear that the town loves Krinkee and his family.
American flags draped the funeral procession route from the Sheridan police station along Main Street and to Coffeen Avenue. Red neon signs were beginning to blend in with daylight — a little less visible, but impactful nonetheless.
In front of the Security State Bank along Coffeen, a sign read: “Thoughts and prayers to the family of Sgt. Nevada Krinkee. He gave all so we can be safe.”
Not far from the bank, the Farmers Coop had a lighted sign that reads, “Never Forgotten Nevada Krinkee.”
‘Every Small Community In Rural America’
The outpouring of support hs rolled in from all corners of the state and beyond.
Kim Hickman traveled from Geraldine, Montana, stayed the night in the Hampton, and began packing 500 sandwich bags with treats of granola bars, sweetened candies and pretzels.
The bags were stapled together with notes written by students from the Tongue River Elementary School in nearby Ranchester.
One student wrote: “Thank you for your service officers and all the others. Thank you for helping inforce (sic) the laws and protecting us.”
Hickman is part of the nationwide group Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) formed long ago as a support network to help survivors in the law enforcement community move forward with their lives.
“I’ll be thinking about the Krinkee family today,” said Hickman, who plans to distribute the bags of treats on the hoods of police vehicles before the memorial service ends at the Golden Dome.
“It’s our way of saying ‘thank you’ to the officers,” Hickman said.
“Every small community in rural America comes together when these kinds of things happen,” she said.
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
