SHERIDAN — Elementary school-aged kids who lined Main Street on Friday to show respect for a fallen hero saw the biggest event since Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit to this picturesque northern Wyoming town in 1984.
Or musician Prince, for that matter.
Prince came to the town’s old Centennial Theater in 1986 to see the premier of his movie “Under the Cherry Moon.”
“These eclipse those visits,” said Kurt Ilgen, a maintenance crew leader with Sheridan College where Sheridan Police Sgt. Nevada Krinkee’s memorial service was held Friday.
The memorial shut down Sheridan for a good chunk of the day, but it wasn’t a holiday. Thousands of people showed out to line the procession route that saw dozens of police vehicles escort Krinkee’s body and his family to the memorial.
“I’ve been here for 41 years, and this is far bigger,” Ilgen said. “Those other visits were big deals, but this local tragedy has people coming from all over to show their respects.”
Dixie Johnson, chief executive officer of the Sheridan County Chamber of Commerce, said the reason for the show-in-force by people this time is simple to explain.
“The community is grieving,” Johnson said. “All of us feel so tremendously sad.”
Police, In Force
Krinkee was shot and killed on Feb. 13 in downtown Sheridan by an assailant getting served a trespass warrant. The shooter fled the scene and barricaded himself in a home on the eastside where he died while trying to escape.
Police tore open the home with a backhoe where the man was hiding.
Shawn Parker, executive director of the Sheridan County Travel and Tourism Bureau, said the community has been consumed by the outpouring of support for the grief-stricken Krinkee family and the Sheridan Police Department.
More than half of the 1,800 attendees of a memorial service for Krinkee at the Bruce Hoffman Golden Dome on the campus of Sheridan College were police officers from jurisdictions in Wyoming, and from the western United States more generally.
Police agencies in Yuma, Arizona, Boise and Meridian, Idaho, Gering, Nebraska, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Susanville, California, all showed up.
They began arriving Thursday and checked in to all the hotels in town — except for a fewer of the lower end, short-stay motels.
A Servant
Claudia Church, a manager of the Bramble Motel & RV Park, said that she got to know Krinkee fairly well from his frequent stops at her establishment because of trouble she’d report to police.
“I’ve known him for six years and interacted with him a lot,” she said. “He was one of the nicest police officers here, and I felt comfortable talking to him.”
Church said she’s had to kick out guests frequently because they get drunk and belligerent.
One time last year, her son visiting from Greenville, North Carolina, got into a brawl with a homeless person who was picking on her 21-year-old.
After a while, Church, her husband and the son were tussling in the street with the man.
Krinkee was called, and instead of charging anyone, the officer got everyone calmed down.
“It was pretty emotional when I heard about him,” she said about learning of his death in the line of duty.
The procession that formed to move Krinkee’s body to the Golden Dome for a public memorial service Friday extended nearly a mile from the Sheridan police station to the chain-link fence that separates the Bramble Motel along Main Street from the equipment rental store Wyoming Rents.
“The very last car was in front of our place,” she said.
Even though an open sign always seems to hang out in front of the Bramble, it was one of the few short stay motels that didn’t fill up this week.
Most of the 1,200 rooms run by 40 properties in Sheridan were taken. Parking lots were packed with police cruisers at all the hotels.
“We have events that draw people out to this community, but this was a unique situation,” Parker said. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Our condolences and support go out for the Krinkees,” he said.
‘One Of The Coolest Persons’
Curtis Garn, a bartender at My Buddy’s Place Lounge, located a few doors away from the Sheridan police station, said he also knew Krinkee well.
Last August, Garn got clocked driving his silver 2009 Harley Davidson at 39 mph in a 30 mph zone along Coffeen Avenue.
Krinkee whipped around in his cruiser, pulled over Garn and wrote him only a warning ticket.
“He was one of the coolest persons,” Garn said. “He was a genuine guy.”
Garn said he has a second job as a waiter at the Rib & Chop House about another mile down from the police station along Main Street in downtown.
The Krinkee family dined in his section at the restaurant Thursday. Garn got to return the favor.
Several of the waiters picked up their bill, which was substantial.
“He was otherworldly,” said Garn of Krinkee.
Pat Maio can be reached at Pat@CowboyStateDaily.com
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Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
