This Story First Appeared on CowboyStateDaily.com
SHERIDAN — As of 10 a.m. Wednesday, an army of Wyoming law-enforcement and SWAT teams still surrounded William Lowery, a man suspected of killing a Sheridan Police Department sergeant in the town 24 hours earlier.
A track hoe excavator, a pressure hose, at least one Bearcat armored vehicle and a legion of armed agents have been bearing down on a home in a residential neighborhood since about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, pressuring the suspect to give himself up.
Lowery, 46, barricaded himself in the house 6th Street and North Sheridan Avenue soon after becoming the suspect in the Tuesday fatal shooting of SPD Sgt. Nevada Krinkee.
Krinkee had been trying to serve a trespass notice when he was shot. SPD called the tragedy “senseless.”
Long Night
Law enforcement and SWAT agencies kept watch through the night.
A second Bearcat armed vehicle arrived at 11:36 p.m., and law enforcement agents discussed having the machine “start taking care of business” on the east wall of the house.
But the suspect remained barricaded all night. Agents started to suspect he had a police scanner of his own and was tracking his move, they later told Cowboy State Daily.
Another northern Wyoming day dawned and brought light snow. A remaining “skeleton crew” responded to rollovers and black ice on nearby Interstate 90.
In their beanies, boots and gloves, agents talked strategy in an 8 a.m. huddle. One pressed his chin to his disposable coffee cup.
Seventeen minutes later, a Bearcat changed position.
The railroad company BNSF contacted police at 8:22, wanting to know if it could send a train through town. Some agents knew, and one was just realizing, they’d been blocking the train tracks since 3 p.m. Tuesday. The train later did roll through about 9.
Come Out!
“Come out!” came a warbled loudspeaker command at 8:23 a.m. Agents approached the house, armed and helmeted. They deployed more gas.
Police had hurled and shot gas grenades and projectiles into the house throughout Tuesday afternoon and evening. They voiced concerns that the gas was dissipating into the wind via holes in the house.
‘Last Option’
At 8:28 a.m. a track hoe excavator rolled down Saberton Ave toward the house — the boon of a small-town scramble.
Sheridan Police Department Chief Travis Koltiska reportedly placed a 7 a.m. phone call to a longtime friend with whom he went to high school, Mike Morgareidge, and asked for an excavator.
He called it his “last option,” related Morgareidge, who co-owns Wyoming Demolition Excavation.
Morgareidge wanted to bring an excavator from the Powder Horn Golf Course but couldn’t because of the icy roads. Then he considered bringing another one from the Three Poles recreation area – still too icy.
Morgareidge then called his friend, TWS owner Chris Scheeler, of Cowley, asking if Scheeler happened to have a spare excavator.
Scheeler did. His rig was doing a job in the same neighborhood where the standoff waged on, and he sent his excavator into the scene, Morgareidge said. A tactical agent with some machinery experience took over the controls and rumbled toward the house.
Agents blasted water into the house with a pressure-hose for about five minutes starting at 9 a.m.
‘William Lowery, This Is the Sheriff’s Office’
At 9:07, an agent bellowed through the megaphone again: “Come out the front door!”
A freezing fog hung in the air. One agent perched on top of the Bearcat aimed a rifle at the home, with a large disc shield fixed around the far side of its barrel.
“William Lowery, this is the sheriff’s office. You need to come outside,” he said.
‘Absolutely Stupid’
The scene drew bystanders throughout Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, while officers maintained a two-block perimeter around the house.
Don Jacobson, who works at an engineering consultation firm in town and teaches a biology class at the local Sheridan College, said his students were abuzz Tuesday.
When he heard of the incident, it shocked him.
“Like I said to my students last night: Sheridan, Wyoming? That’s why we moved here,” said Jacobson. “This is beyond belief.”
Another bystander, Bill Hunter, walked his rottweiler Courage near the scene.
“Absolutely stupid what this guy did,” said Hunter of the suspect. “Stupid.”
A Cowboy State Daily reporter tracking developments at the scene overheard another bystander’s indictment: “Everyone’s opinion is the same at this point. He killed a cop. Shoot him and be done with it.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at: Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com
Cowboy State Daily reporters Andrew Rossi and Pat Maio are at the scene in Sheridan and contributed to this report.
