Michael Alan Hogan was a 43-year-old patrolman with the Hutchinson Police Department who was killed on December 15, 1989, after a routine dispatch to the J.C. Penney store on Minnesota Highway 15. While identifying a suspect detained by store security, Hogan was shot in the head at close range when the suspect produced a handgun. The gunman fled through town, forced two people to drive him toward Minneapolis, and a multi-day crime spree from December 15 to December 18 followed.

Investigators identified the suspect as Phillip Lewis Cole, who was indicted in connection with Hogan’s murder and related crimes. Cole was arrested on the day of Hogan’s funeral. Prosecutors tried the case as first-degree murder, and a life sentence was imposed for the killing of an on-duty officer.

Does anyone have memories of the community response in Hutchinson during those days or information about the events that followed the store incident?