For the first time in nearly 30 years, a Des Moines police officer was killed while on duty over the weekend. Officer Sean Wissink was driving early Sunday morning from his home in Grimes to Des Moines in a city-owned SUV, when he swerved to miss a deer, hit a guard rail and rolled down an embankment.
Wissink, a ten-year veteran of the Des Moines P.D., was helicoptered to a hospital, where he later died. He was headed for the Des Moines airport to catch a plane to New Mexico to take part in an anti-terrorism training program. Wissink was an Ankeny native, was married and had two children. The last Des Moines policeman killed on duty was shot to death in August of 1977.