Officer Earl Ray Hoggard, 41, was killed on March 30, 1974, while on duty in Ketchikan, Alaska. He and his sergeant responded to a report of an apartment door found ajar; as they entered, a gunman hidden inside opened fire with a .22-caliber rifle. Hoggard was mortally wounded in the exchange. Another officer returned fire and the assailant then shot himself, dying at the scene. With the shooter deceased, there was no arrest or prosecution to follow.

Hoggard had served in the United States Army and later the U.S. Coast Guard, where he retired as a Warrant Officer, before joining the Ketchikan police department about a year earlier. He was a husband and father, and his death was the department’s first line-of-duty loss. The shooting transformed a routine welfare check into a permanent loss for the community and his family.

Did anyone in Ketchikan at the time know Hoggard or have memories of the department’s response that night?