Pubdate: Wed, 11 May 2005
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
Section: Crime/Courts
Copyright: 2005 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Tom Alex, Staff Writer
Related:

DANGER ALWAYS PRESENT WORKING UNDERCOVER

'Drugs And Guns Just Go Together,' A Des Moines Sergeant Says.

Undercover police officers normally control the environment of their 
operations and keep the element of surprise on their side.

But on Tuesday evening in Des Moines, the suspects started the shooting, 
wiping out both advantages, police said.

Police said that undercover drug operations rarely fall apart so badly, but 
the danger always is present. Des Moines Police Sgt. Todd Dykstra said drug 
dealers sometimes are paranoid and tend to be well-armed.

"Drugs and guns just go together," the sergeant said. "That's the other 
side of it."

Some drug dealers plan for the possibility of being surprised by police.

Shootings of undercover police officers in Des Moines, while rare, have 
occurred before. Des Moines Police Officer Joanne Pollock, now a 
lieutenant, was shot in January 1990 while approaching a suspected drug 
house as an undercover officer. She suffered minor injuries.

Last Friday in St. Paul, Minn., undercover vice officer Gerald Vick was 
killed while walking to his unmarked car. He was the 30th St. Paul police 
officer killed in the line of duty since the 1880s.

Seventeen Des Moines officers have been killed in the line of duty since 
the late 1800s.

Retired Des Moines Police Sgt. Michael Leeper said he cannot remember a 
single incident in which three officers were shot in the city. Until 
Tuesday night.

Two police officers have been shot in a single incident on several occasions.

A 16-year-old boy shot and wounded two Des Moines police officers in 
September 1999, then was critically injured when officers returned fire. 
Police Officer Jeffrey P. Gowen was hit in the chest and elbow, and Sgt. 
Garey Allen Bryan II was hit in the hand. Both recovered. The teen was 
critically wounded.

Officers Michael Nehring and James Osterquist were wounded by Joseph White, 
22, in an August 1977 shootout. The officers were investigating a complaint 
of two men harassing women. White, who was wanted on charges of rape and 
attempted murder, ran, but later was found dead in an alley a half-block away.

In August 1977, Des Moines Officer Dennis Hill, 30, was shot to death in an 
ambush as he arrived at a shooting scene. His assailant, Anthony Clayburn, 
23, also died of gunshot wounds inflicted by police. Officer Larry Cramer 
was injured. Later a film, "Heaven's Heroes," was made about the shooting.

Hill is the last Des Moines officer to be shot to death while on duty. 
Another Des Moines officer, Brian Melton, had been shot to death in April 
1977 after a suspect grabbed another officer's gun during a struggle.

The last Iowa police officer killed while on duty, according to Register 
files, was Dennis McElderry, a Davis County deputy run over by a reserve 
officer as McElderry tried to remove road spikes from a highway during a 
chase on Jan. 4, 2003.

The last Iowa officer shot to death was Newton Police Officer Daniel 
McPherren, 36, who was killed in September 1985 by a gunshot to his 
upper-left chest. He was shot by a convicted felon during a robbery of the 
Hy-Vee Food Store in Newton. He was wearing a bulletproof vest but was shot 
in the side.

Before Tuesday, the most recent shooting of an officer in Iowa was April 
17, when off-duty Polk County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Lose was critically 
wounded after being shot in a crowded Des Moines park, minutes after he 
decided to follow a car that sped through his south Des Moines neighborhood.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth