There is probably no greater outpouring of community grief than when a law enforcement officer dies in the line of duty.
When one who swears to protect the community dies from deadly force, the loss is everyone’s loss.
The kind of collective suffering that last happened in 2000 with the shooting death of Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputy Wally Davis has visited the North Olympic Peninsula three times earlier over the previous 89 years.
Davis was the first law officer in Clallam and Jefferson counties to be shot and killed while on duty.
But the two sheriffs and a town marshal died earlier because of events related to their official duties.
Rice left a wife, two daughters, 11 and 6 and a son, 9. He was 48 when he died, the same age as Davis.
Rice had been a logger and worked for the U.S. Forest Service before becoming town marshal.
During World War II he was an Army demolitions man during savage fighting on Okinawa and Ie Shima.
His obituary said he loved flowers, animals and the outdoors. He was buried near his mother’s home in Welser, Idaho.
Nelson was a Beaver native. He died after “a long illness.”
It was speculated at the time that his health had been damaged by being gassed while serving in World War I and exposure to the elements while watching for bandits and whiskey runners in damp woods.
That was his modus operandi, to go to great lengths to get the bad guys regardless of the conditions. The man was known as fearless lawman.
At a young age he learned the use of firearms from his sister, herself a crack shot.
Nelson joined the Army Corps of Engineers in 1917, survived the trenches, then returned to Beaver, where he became a timber cruiser.
He was 26 in 1920 when he began serving as sheriff. In 1922 he was elected to a four-year term. He and his wife had a son.
During his tenure, Nelson captured Discovery Bay murderers Charles Butt and T.H. Riley.
He forced them to surrender single-handedly in their cabin on the Hoh Trail.
Nelson once arrested a whiskey runner who threatened to shoot anyone who tried to take him to jail.
“You have two minutes to decide,” Nelson told him, according to one account. “After that, you are coming along with me one way or the other.”
The man gave up.
The American Legion post of Port Angeles conducted Nelson’s funeral.
McInnes was known as an expert boatsman when he set out from Port Townsend in his tiny boat on the morning of Nov. 5, 1911, a Sunday. He was headed for Point Wilson.
His cockleshell was found bottom up two miles inside Marrowstone Point, in mid-channel.
One oar was stuck beneath the rower’s seat and a trolling line dragged the stern.
A Jefferson County deputy sheriff said McInnes took his revolver and handcuffs. McInnes never carried them unless he was on official business.
McInnes and the deputy would often search for men running deer with hounds.
It was believed that McInnes took his trolling line along as a cover tactic, or to fish for salmon while patrolling.
