Professor Jeff Stein Joins us to tell us the story of sacrifice in the line of duty. Waterloo Police Officers Wayne Rice and Michael Hoing were working the overnight shift when they responded to a call of loud music coming from a house. Those involved turned down the music, and the officers returned to their squad car. Then four of the individuals started yelling and cursing at the officers. Rice and Hoing returned to the house and placed one person under arrest for disturbing the peace; he then started fighting with Officer Hoing. Another tackled Officer Rice, and the two struggled on the ground, the officer even getting hit in the head with a chair.
James Taylor, who had recently been released from a federal prison in Missouri, then joined the fight, punching Rice with his fist, and then removing the officer’s gun from its holster. Taylor fired two shots into Officer Rice’s chest. Not satisfied, he moved to where Officer Hoing was involved in the first fight and shot and killed him.
Taylor then fled the scene, leading to a manhunt featuring helicopters searching from the air, and officers from several law enforcement agencies searching from the ground.
Four days later, two women ran into Taylor on a farm near LaPorte City. Officers armed with shotguns swarmed the farm fields. Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Marvin Messerschmidt saw crops moving and chased Taylor through a soybean field. Taylor tripped, fell, and was captured.
He was convicted of double murder and sentenced to life in prison, a life that ended when Taylor died in 2014 at the age of 60; ironically, just a few weeks after the state trooper who captured him also died.
It was the largest manhunt in Iowa history, leading to the capture of James “T-Bone” Taylor after killing two Waterloo police officers in the early morning hours on this date, in 1981.