INDEPENDENCE — Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Jim Smith left his hometown for the last time Friday night, called with his tactical team to the scene of a standoff with an armed man in Grundy Center, 50 miles away.
It was, said Sgt. Joe Schwinghammer, a friend in the Buchanan County sheriff's office, what he loved to do.
On Sunday, Smith came home to Independence — also for the last time.
Hundreds of people lined State Highway 150, some with their hands on their hearts, to watch solemnly as dozens of Iowa State Patrol and other law enforcement vehicles from across the state entered town. Their emergency lights blazing, they passed beneath a U.S. flag suspended from a fire department ladder truck.
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