At about 3:20 a.m. Sunday, Elaine Kristiansen woke to the frantic ringing of her doorbell.
She and her husband had been in a “deep sleep” before that, Kristiansen told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.
She dressed and strode to her front window to see who was on her porch, then went outside — and heard a woman sobbing.
By then the woman was at another neighbor’s front door, pleading for help, said Kristiansen.
Those neighbors in the Park Street are in Sheridan called the police.
“When the police came,” recalled Kristiansen, the woman ran to them, “sobbing hysterically, saying, ‘He has a gun. You have to go in, he has a gun.’”
Kristiansen reflected Monday that she felt badly for not making it to the door in time to help the woman.
The police helped the woman into a car, then pulled up to her house.
Probably three cop cars converged on the scene, and officers tried to make contact with the man still inside the woman’s home, Kristiansen recalled.
The Sheridan Police Department reported in a statement released hours after the incident that the male in this situation left the home then retreated back inside it.
Kristiansen gave a characterization to that maneuver: “He didn’t flee the house. He came back out with a shotgun. And he shot at police for, like, 20 minutes.”
When the man came back out and advanced toward officers, police “engaged the male and shot him,” the Sheridan Police Department reported.
A ‘Long Gun'
The police department’s statement describes the man as having a “long gun.”
The agency’s spokesman Capt. Tom Ringley declined Monday to confirm whether it was a shotgun, noting that the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) has taken over the case.
That’s standard with officer-involved shootings, where local agencies come under investigation alongside the other subjects involved in the shootings.
DCI did not immediately respond to a late-day email request for confirmation and a list of other questions.
Cowboy State Daily’s attempts Monday to reach other nearby neighbors were unsuccessful.
‘We Don’t Want To Shoot You'
Kristiansen recalled listening to gunshots in the dark Sunday morning.
She said she watched police officers “stuck” behind their cars, trying from that distance to calm the shooter down.
They were “constantly yelling at him, saying ‘Put the gun down, put the gun down. We don’t want to shoot you,’” she said.
The man kept shooting at police, “so they shot him,” said Kristiansen.
She said the department’s later announcement describing several shots coming from the house toward officers was an understatement compared to the 20 minutes of persistent gunfire she said she heard at the time.
“He was just spraying all the police cars and trying to shoot them,” she said.
Kristiansen heard police remark about the sight of blood and say, “Looks like he’s down.”
As far as she knew Monday afternoon, the man was still in a hospital.
This Family
Kristiansen declined to identify the man shot, or his wife, publicly.
She attributed that to what she called a pattern of people outside of critical situations unleashing judgment before knowing all the details.
She said she hopes people will give this family empathy and compassion while waiting for answers regarding this case.
The family has been in the neighborhood about three or four years and have “adorable” children, she said.
The man involved in the gunfire exchange “has always been nice and friendly to us,” said Kristiansen, who called the incident highly irregular for the man.
Sheridan's Shootings
This is the second officer-involved shooting and standoff incident with which Kristiansen has become closely acquainted.
In February 2024, a Sheridan man who was being evicted from his home, William Lowery, shot Sheridan Police Department Sgt. Nevada Krinkee to death.
Lowery fled to the nearby home of Karo Hamilton, as he knew a man living in Hamilton’s basement.
Hamilton was not home. Police were able to remove her mother, who was home, safely.
Lowery engaged police for more than a day in a standoff during which he fired from the home; police lobbed the house with gas grenades and blasted it with a firehose — and ultimately tore into it with excavation equipment.
When an armed Lowery fled into the street, a Casper Police Department officer shot and killed him.
That officer, who has since left the department was found justified.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s home was in ruins and her silver-haired cat was missing.
Kristiansen, an experienced humane cat-trapper in Sheridan, tried to help Hamilton find the lost cat, Cersei.
More than two years later as of Monday, Cersei is still missing, said Kristiansen.
She lamented the fact of “another shooting in our town.”
“I just feel like our entire world is just full of anger,” Kristiansen said. “People are full of anger. … I’m really sad today.”
She said she hopes the tragedy will motivate people in communities to take better care of one another.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
