On a Sunday afternoon in rural Kansas, the life of a dedicated law enforcement officer, a White male named Robert Kunze III, age 41, was tragically cut short. On September 16, 2018, Kunze, a 12-year veteran of the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office, responded to a call about a suspicious person near Garden Plain. The call came from a family who had encountered a man with a black pickup truck and two ATVs.
When Deputy Kunze arrived at the scene on 295th Street West and West 21st Street, he found the suspect with the hood of the truck up. This truck would later be reported as stolen.
As Kunze began to question the man, 29-year-old Robert Greeson, inconsistencies in his story arose. A pat-down revealed a. 40-caliber handgun in Greeson's waistband. Kunze took the weapon and placed it away from them before attempting to handcuff the suspect. It was at this moment that a struggle broke out. Greeson managed to get to the confiscated handgun and fired, striking Deputy Kunze in his upper torso, in an area not protected by his ballistic vest. At 1:48 p.m., just six minutes after arriving, Kunze activated the emergency button on his radio, signaling he was in trouble and had been shot.
In his final moments, demonstrating immense bravery, the mortally wounded deputy drew his own weapon and returned fire. He shot Greeson, a convicted felon who was on a crime spree that included a carjacking the previous night. When a second deputy arrived a minute later, he found both Kunze and Greeson on the ground. The suspect, Greeson, was pronounced dead at the scene. The gun he used to shoot Kunze was later identified as one that had been reported stolen earlier that day in an incident to which Kunze himself had responded.
Deputy Kunze was rushed to a Wichita hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries. Law enforcement officials later stated that by neutralizing the suspect, Deputy Kunze likely saved the lives of two witnesses, an adult and a teenager who had been following Greeson and were present at the scene. They were considered to be in grave danger from the man who had just murdered a law enforcement officer. In the end, there was no arrest to be made in the death of Deputy Kunze, as his killer was stopped by the deputy's own heroic last act.
