Sergeant James Cowart was shot and killed by a former deputy sheriff he had arrested five years earlier.

He was at home when the subject knocked on his door. When he answered it the subject, standing in the yard, fired a single shot through the glass-enclosed porch, striking Sergeant Cowart in the stomach.

Arriving officers found the subject fatally wounded after his shotgun accidentally discharged as he attempted to dismantle it.

Sergeant Cowart had served with the Des Moines Police Department for nine years.