Kyle Ricke sentenced for murder of Algona police officer in 2023
SPIRIT LAKE — Kyle Ricke had only one reason to gun down Algona police Officer Kevin Cram last year, prosecutor Scott Brown said Thursday: He was “angry at the system.”
Ricke was found guilty on Thursday of first-degree murder in Cram’s death.
Ricke, 43, had problems with an ex-wife and ex-girlfriend and was recently in prison. On September 11, 2023, he told his sister that he would “not go to prison again.”
More: Algona police officer Kevin Cram, killed in shooting, remembered for his service at funeral
Two days later, on September 13, Cram came to arrest him on a warrant for allegedly harassing his ex-wife. Two minutes later, Cram was dead.
Jurors in Ricke’s trial, which moved to Dickinson County because of pretrial publicity, heard – and saw on video footage from Cram’s patrol car – that Cram told Ricke he was going to be arrested but allowed him to park a skid steer he was driving first. Brown told jurors that Cram was “polite” and “nice” to Ricke and paid for it with his life.
While Ricke was parking the vehicle, Cram stopped to talk to Ricke’s mother. He didn’t have time to turn around or draw his gun as Ricke approached him from behind and shot him eight times with a 9mm handgun. Several of the shots were fired at close range after Cram had already fallen to the ground. On the video, Ricke can be heard screaming “too late, you motherfucking mother” after the shot was fired.
The video also showed Ricke pointing the gun at his own head and pulling the trigger despite there being no bullets left, then fleeing the scene. He was arrested hours later at his sister’s home in Minnesota after she encouraged him to surrender peacefully.
The jury took about an hour to find Ricke guilty. He will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. on August 21 in Algona and faces a life sentence.
Prosecutors say Kyle Ricke freaked out after his anger slowly bubbled up
Ricke’s trial was quick, with less than two days for testimony. In his closing argument, Brown told jurors that the video clearly shows that Ricke intentionally and without justification murdered the eight-year Algona police veteran.
“The evidence in this case shows that Kyle Ricke was on the edge for a period of time, at least a few days,” Brown said, adding, “He himself admits that he just couldn’t take it anymore. So his solution was to shoot Officer Cram.”
More: Database lists Iowa police officers killed in the line of duty
To be convicted of premeditated murder, the perpetrator must have acted intentionally and with “malicious intent,” even if only briefly. Brown said Ricke’s actions clearly showed he intended to cause Cram’s death, especially because he fired eight separate shots.
“He pulled the trigger eight times. Eight times,” Brown said. “One of those would be enough (to find him guilty).”
Defense: Ricke acted “out of instinct”
In her closing argument, defense attorney Barbara Westphal said the prosecution had failed to prove that Ricke had acted in a mental state necessary for murder.
“This was not a planned act by Mr. Ricke,” she said. “He acted neither intentionally nor premeditatedly.”
Westphal pointed out that Ricke fired several shots at Cram and then tried to kill himself in front of his mother, something he would not have done if he had had time to think about his actions. She asked the jury to find him not guilty of premeditated murder.
Previously: Waterloo police kill 35-year-old man who allegedly shot two police officers
“Mr. Ricke did not have the mental attitude to think about his actions. He acted on instinct,” she said. “He had no time to think about what he was doing.”
But Brown countered that Ricke had plenty of time to think about his actions. At one point, he stood silently for 96 seconds to demonstrate the time span between Ricke’s conversation with Cram and the shooting. He also refuted Ricke’s claim in a later interview with investigators that he was “unconscious” and could not remember what happened.
“The defendant thought to himself, ‘I’m going to take my frustration out on this police officer,'” Brown said. “I’m going to take out my gun and point it at him and show him how frustrated I am, and then I’m going to commit this murder.”
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at [email protected] or 715-573-8166.
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