Blue Alert Issued Today: Repeat Offender Killed After Slaying Two Missouri Deputies

Blue Alert Issued Today — Richard Dean Bird, 45, was shot and killed early Tuesday after a lengthy manhunt that followed the fatal shooting of a Christian County deputy during a traffic stop just after 4 p. m. Monday. The episode left two deputies dead, two more wounded and prompted a multi-county law enforcement operation.

Blue Alert Issued Today: Manhunt for Richard Dean Bird

Authorities say the traffic stop south of Highlandville escalated when Bird allegedly fatally shot Deputy Gabriel Ramirez, 30. That killing triggered hours of searching that ended in a nearby county early Tuesday when officers engaged Bird in a roughly 30-minute shootout. Bird was shot and killed in that exchange.

Deputy Michael Hislope, 40, was killed during the overnight manhunt and two other deputies were injured in the confrontation that ended the search; one of the injured was a Christian County deputy and the other was a Webster County deputy. The sequence — a daytime traffic stop, an extended manhunt and an overnight shootout — produced rapid and deadly consequences for the local force.

Christian County Sheriff Brad Cole on the Deaths of Gabriel Ramirez and Michael Hislope

Sheriff Brad Cole identified the two fallen deputies and spoke to reporters about the toll on the department. "It's been a long day. It's been a trying day, " he said, later adding, "We do what we have to do to make sure that our citizens are safe. And that's what we did today. We took a bad guy off the street and sent him where he needed to be. "

The reaction from the sheriff’s office underscored the immediate operational impact: multiple agencies coordinated a manhunt across county lines, returned fire in a prolonged confrontation, and managed scene operations after two line-of-duty deaths and two injuries.

Richard Dean Bird's Criminal Record and Recent Bookings

Investigators pointed to a long criminal history spanning Kansas and Missouri as context for the suspect's behavior. Bird was arrested in September 2014 after allegedly firing multiple rifle shots at a Johnson County, Kansas, sheriff’s deputy; he was initially charged with attempted first-degree murder and theft and held on a $1 million bond, later pleading to reduced counts and being sentenced in 2016 on five related counts. Records show he was released from the Kansas Department of Corrections in April 2023.

Subsequent Missouri filings show additional arrests and charges. Court and booking records indicate a Stone County booking on Feb. 20, 2026, that included charges of second-degree burglary, unlawful possession of a firearm and stealing property valued at $750 or more. Those records also note that Bird posted $50, 000 bond days before the fatal encounter. Earlier Missouri proceedings in 2024 included a Taney County allegation of forcible entry and trespassing; court documents from that case described him as a "danger to the community or to any other person" and noted he was found with gloves, a flashlight and a knife. Later in 2024 he was fined $200 and ordered to pay court costs on two counts tied to those charges.

Bird also faced a receiving-stolen-property filing in which officers reportedly found collectible coins valued at about $2, 000 and documents the suspect allegedly tried to destroy, and that case is part of the recent chain of arrests leading up to the shootings.

What makes this notable is the continuity of encounters with law enforcement over more than a decade — a 2014 shooting at an officer, multiple subsequent Missouri arrests, a release from prison in 2023 and a booking with bond posted days before Monday’s traffic stop — a pattern that culminated in the lethal confrontation this week.

Investigators continue to process scenes and review records that tie the events together. The deaths of Deputies Gabriel Ramirez and Michael Hislope have left the Christian County Sheriff’s Office and partner agencies managing both operational recovery and an investigation into the full sequence of events that led from a routine stop to a multi-county manhunt and an overnight shootout.