In the pre-dawn hours of October 12, 1995, 31-year-old Topeka Police Department patrolman Tony Ray Patterson was killed while serving as the designated ram man during a drug raid on a house near Washburn University. A panel of the door broke away as he tried to force entry, creating an opening through which a single fatal shot was fired from inside the residence. The bullet entered under his left arm, an unprotected area beneath his bullet-resistant vest, and traveled through his side. Fellow officers and paramedics were unable to revive him.

The man inside the apartment, Stephen Medford Shively, was apprehended at the scene. Another officer returned fire and injured the resident in the leg. At trial Shively’s defense said he had been awakened at about 3 a.m. and acted in defense of his dwelling; a jury acquitted him of murder. He was convicted on several drug offenses and for battery against a law enforcement officer for aiming his weapon at Patterson’s partner, but did not serve prison time for Patterson’s death.

Are there details about the raid, the entry method, or eyewitness accounts that readers can add to help clarify what happened that night?