KDSN Radio

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s Attorney General has ruled a fatal shooting by a Knoxville police officer was legally justified. Sergeant Joseph Weppler responded with another officer to a 9-1-1 call on August 21st from Andrea Funk, who said her husband Steven had crashed his car into the house and was trying to get to her. Officers arrived and heard Steven Funk strangling his wife behind the bedroom door. Sergeant Weppler was able to push into the bedroom and ordered Funk to take his hands off his wife’s throat, but he refused.

Weppler fired at Funk, and he was hit and later died. There was a no-contact order against Steven Funk, and the investigation determined he may have been drinking.

The A-G’s report says local officers were familiar with Funk, as he had been a Warren County Sheriff’s Deputy, and his drinking and mental health had gotten progressively worse in the last two years.