Jurors on Thursday convicted an Iowa man of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a police officer who was trying to arrest him.

Kyle Ricke, 43, faces life in prison for the murder of 33-year-old Algona Police Officer Kevin Cram, the Des Moines Register reported. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 21.

Cram was on patrol in Algona, a community of about 5,300, when he learned of an arrest warrant for Ricke on a charge of harassment, investigators have said. The officer saw Ricke and told him he would be arrested. That’s when Ricke shot him, according to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Prosecutors said Ricke shot Cram eight times. He allegedly told his sister days before the shooting that he would not go back to jail. Video shows Ricke shouting, “Too late!” at Cram after the officer fell to the ground.

Video also shows Ricke then trying to shoot himself, but there were no bullets left in his gun. He fled but was arrested later that day in Brown County, Minnesota, which is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Algona.

Defense attorney Barbara Westphal argued that the shooting was not planned.

“Mr. Ricke did not have the mindset to reflect on what he was doing. He was acting out of instinct,” she said. “He did not have the time to ponder what he was doing.”

Half the courtroom was filled with Cram’s family and other supporters, some of whom wept as the verdict was read about an hour after jurors began deliberation, according to the Des Moines Register. Ricke showed no apparent reaction to the verdict, the newspaper reported.

Prosecutor Scott Brown told the newspaper that Cram’s family was glad to see his killer face justice.

“I think they’re relieved, mainly, that this process is over, and the result is what they expected,” he said. “It’s been a long road, even though it was less than a year to get this to trial. It was still tough for them, and it will continue to be difficult.”

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A mental health advocate with a statewide police watchdog group is raising concerns after the same Crookston Police Department officer was involved in two deadly shootings just 45 days apart.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension identified the officer as 31-year-old Nick Fladland, a five-year veteran with the department.

The BCA preliminary report says Fladland was one of three officers called to the Share and Care shelter for a report of 44-year-old Christopher Junkin breaking furniture and other items on June 30.

Fladland, another Crookston police officer, and a deputy with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office used tasers and a pepper spray-like chemical to subdue Junkin, but Officer Fladland ultimately shot him after Junkin followed them into a hallway.

On May 16, just six weeks before, Fladland shot and killed Andrew Dale after Dale charged officers with a hatchet.

Deb Lacroix-Kinniry, a mental health advocate with Communities United Against Police Brutality, a statewide police watchdog group, said she was concerned that Polk County isn’t adhering to Travis’ Law. That law requires 911 call centers to deflect mental health crisis calls directly to mental health crisis teams.

Lacroix-Kinniry also questioned whether Fladland should have been equipped with a firearm so shortly after he shot and killed another man last May.

She says it’s possible an experience like that could affect how an officer could respond in another dangerous situation in the future.

“With a situation like that, an officer is going to, in my experience and understanding of PTSD, is going to be much more likely to not have the same way,” Lacroix-Kinniry said.

During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers debated a bill designed to give Travis’ Law more teeth and allow the public to sue officials for violating it. That bill did not pass.

Fladland was placed on critical incident leave. The shooting remains under investigation.

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The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a set of best practices to ensure the security of unstaffed absentee ballot drop boxes that the state Supreme Court last week ruled could be installed for the fall elections.

The use of drop boxes became a partisan issue after Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden in Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020. Wisconsin is once again expected to be one of the few swing states this year, heightening attention to voting rules.

Since his defeat, Trump and Republicans have alleged that drop boxes in Wisconsin facilitated cheating, even though they offered no credible evidence. Democrats, election officials and some Republicans argued the boxes are secure. An Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results in 2020.

The best practices approved Thursday, to be distributed to the state’s 1,800 local officials who administer elections, detail ways to make drop boxes and surrounding areas safe, well-lit and accessible to voters. The guidance also encourages clerks to empty drop boxes before they get full.

The guidance does not specify that the boxes be emptied on any type of regular interval. It also says recording when the drop box is emptied, who did it and how many ballots are retrieved is encouraged.

The guidance also recommends that the drop boxes be clearly marked and that any damage be documented and inspected to ensure the box can be safely used. Clerks were also encouraged to communicate to voters the locations of drop boxes and when the last ballot retrieval date will be.

The guidance for clerks is just that. The best practices are not mandatory.

The commission opted not to adopt an emergency rule, which carries the weight of law, and instead issued the guidance to clerks which is in response to questions that came in the wake of the court’s ruling last week.

The commission wanted to move quickly to explain the impact of the court’s ruling that allows for the use of unstaffed drop boxes in all future elections, including the Aug. 13 primary and Nov. 5 presidential election.

Drop boxes had been used for years in Wisconsin, but their popularity exploded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 40% of Wisconsin voters casting mail ballots, a record high.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2022, then controlled by conservatives, ruled in favor of a conservative law firm that challenged the use of unstaffed drop boxes outside of clerk offices, such as near libraries and other public spaces. The court ruled that drop boxes can only be located at offices staffed by election clerks, not at remote, unstaffed locations.

Liberals brought a new challenge after the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to liberal control last year. The court last week overturned the 2022 ruling and once again allowed the use of absentee ballot drop boxes.

Drop boxes were used in 39 other states during the 2022 election, according to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.

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