Des Moines, Iowa — A northwest Iowa law enforcement officer who was killed in the line of duty nearly a century ago was among six fallen officers honored Friday morning at the Iowa Peace Officer Memorial Ceremony in Des Moines.
Plymouth County Sheriff’s Deputy William Maxwell was killed in the line of duty in 1919. Col. Jeff Ritzman of the Iowa State Patrol related the circumstances surrounding Deputy Maxwell’s death.
Along with Deputy Maxwell, the others honored at Friday’s ceremony include: Deputy Mark Burbridge of the Pottawattomie County Sheriff’s Office in Council Bluffs who was shot and killed in an inmate escape last year; Special Officer Timothy O’Brien of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, who died October 2, 1893 after was shot by a man he found riding a freight train; Special Officer Charles E. Crill of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad who died March 17, 1917 after being shot while trying to apprehend a man breaking into a boxcar; Deputy Robert McKinley of the Pottawattamie Co. Sheriff’s Office, who died March 13, 1947 as he responded to an accident and his patrol car went into a creekbed; Officer William E. Hickman of the Indianola Police Department, who died December 6, 1957, when he lifted a drain tile while investigating an accident and that led to an injury and a blood clot in his lung.
Several hundred law enforcement officers, and representatives of the families of the honored officers attended Friday morning’s ceremony, which had to be moved inside due to rain.
