Waterloo police are in mourning after the untimely death of an officer. According to Waterloo Safety Services Director Dan Trelka, officer Adam Liddle died of what he termed “unknown medical trauma” during a morning workout on Thursday.
The 35-year-old Liddle had served as a volunteer firefighter in Hudson, just south of Waterloo, and was a former Black Hawk County sheriff’s deputy who joined the police force three years ago.
Trelka says Liddle was off-duty Thursday morning at the time of his death, but he’s is reviewing the criteria to determine if Liddle’s death could be considered a “line of duty” incident under the federal Hometown Heroes Act of 2003.
The measure says if a public safety officer dies as the “direct and proximate result of a heart attack or stroke” while on duty, or within 24 hours of having been on duty, that death could be treated as a line of duty death. Trelka says the last shift Liddle worked was from 3 to 11 p.m. on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Elwin Huffman, KOEL, Oelwein)