In the pre-dawn hours of November 8, 1980, Wichita police Officer Paul Garofalo, 24, was killed while on routine patrol. Garofalo was seated in the driver’s seat of a marked cruiser and had leaned over to speak with two women at the passenger window when a man armed with a sawed-off shotgun emerged from the shadows and fired twice through the driver’s side window. Garofalo was struck in the head and chest and died instantly; his partner, Officer Randy Mullikin, was wounded in the legs by shotgun pellets. Neither officer had the chance to draw a weapon. The gunman dropped the shotgun and fled on foot.

Police arrested Ivory Haislip on November 9, 1980, after witness accounts and what investigators described as a confession to acquaintances led to his identification. Another man, Anthony Ray Martin, was identified as a key witness in the case against Haislip. Haislip was tried three times, convicted of first-degree murder in each trial, and sentenced to life in prison. Garofalo, a U.S. Army veteran who had served with the department just over a year, was survived by his wife and young daughter.