Thousands gather to remember slain Kansas deputy

WICHITA, Kan. – Flags are waving throughout Wichita as thousands remember a sheriff’s deputy who killed his attacker in his final moments in an act his boss said saved lives.

The Wichita Eagle reports that an honour guard of law enforcement officers in dress uniforms and white gloves escorted Sedgwick County Deputy Robert Kunze’s flag-draped casket into a church before services began.

Army veteran Tim Wooding says he had planned to go out of town, but instead stood in the drizzling rain hanging flags along the route that the hearse carrying Kunze’s coffin would follow to his final resting spot. Wooding says all the community can do is “be here.”

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter says others could have died Sunday if the mortally wounded Kunze hadn’t killed his attacker, 29-year-old Robert Greeson.