A northern Iowa police officer was shot Wednesday night, prompting a manhunt that ended with an arrest in Minnesota.

Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said that police officer Kevin Cram was on patrol in Algona, a town of about 5,300 residents, when he learned of an active arrest warrant for 43-year-old Kyle Ricke on a charge of harassment. Just before 8 p.m,, Mortvedt said the officer saw Ricke and told him he would be arrested, who then shot him. Cram, a 33-year-old husband and father who had been an officer in Algona since 2015, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The shooting prompted a Blue Alert to let the public know a suspect who posed a potential threat to law enforcement was on the loose. Ricke was captured without incident just before midnight and taken into custody in Brown County, Minnesota, about 100 miles north of Algona. Ricke was charged with first-degree murder, Mortvedt said, and was being held in Minnesota pending extradition.

Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens said at a news conference: “Tragic, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching pain and agony, but we will bow our backs, we will be strong, and we will continue to do our jobs.” 

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