Killing of Harry Nicholas Rice

Harry Nicholas "Nick" Rice (1952 – July 20, 1970) was an American University of Kansas student who was shot and killed by Lawrence police officer Jimmy Joe Stroud during civil unrest near the university campus. Rice, aged 18, was an uninvolved bystander. Stroud had fired a .30-caliber carbine at another person who was attempting to ignite an overturned car and struck Rice in the back of the neck.

The initial investigation and a coroner's inquest did not publicly identify the shooter, and no criminal charges were filed. Investigative records obtained by Rice's family in 2020 showed that a bullet recovered near where he fell had been fired from Stroud's rifle, but a police captain's handling of the bullet broke the chain of custody. In 2026, the city of Lawrence installed a historical marker at the site of the shooting that names Stroud.

Background

Rice was born in 1952 to Harry Dollar Rice and Esther "Chris" Christianson Rice and grew up in Leawood, Kansas. He attended Shawnee Mission South High School and Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. At the University of Kansas, he studied engineering and pledged Zeta Beta Tau. He completed his freshman year in 1970.

Rice supported the civil rights movement and opposed the Vietnam War, but was not active in the protests then taking place in Lawrence. In April 1970, he helped extinguish the arson fire at the Kansas Union and received a commendation from the city. During the summer, he worked at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Leawood.

Lawrence experienced a period of racial conflict, antiwar protest and armed violence during the spring and summer of 1970. The tensions intensified after Lawrence police officer William Garrett shot and killed 19-year-old Black activist Rick "Tiger" Dowdell on July 16. Gunfire and confrontations continued in the following days.

Shooting

On the evening of July 20, Rice traveled to Lawrence with his girlfriend and a friend from Kansas City to pay a parking ticket. After learning that he could mail the payment, the group played pinball at the Rock Chalk Café and later the Gaslight Tavern in the 1200 block of Oread Avenue. A crowd had gathered in the area in response to Dowdell's killing.

Police closed the Rock Chalk Café and used tear gas as the crowd became disorderly. A red Volkswagen was overturned, and a person tried unsuccessfully to set it on fire. Rice and his girlfriend initially entered his car to leave, but Rice got out after seeing their friend. Stroud fired his recently purchased .30-caliber carbine toward the person beside the overturned car. He missed that person and hit Rice in the back of the neck.

Bystanders carried Rice into the Gaslight Tavern and attempted first aid while tear gas entered the building. Rice was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival shortly before midnight. Merton Olds, a 23-year-old graduate student standing nearby, was shot in the leg and travelled in the same ambulance. Rice was widely identified as a bystander rather than a participant in the disturbance.

Investigations and legal proceedings

Within hours of the shooting, Stroud told officials that he believed he had shot someone and asked whether he would be charged. He later told investigators that he had fired one shot. His rifle, which had held 30 rounds after test-firing earlier that day, contained 28 rounds when examined. A diagram and witness accounts in the investigation placed Stroud, Rice and Olds along the same line of fire.

Lawrence police officer Virgil Foust found a spent bullet near the place where Rice fell and gave it to police captain Merle McClure. McClure put it in his pocket and retained it for about a week before surrendering it to investigators, breaking the chain of custody and making it inadmissible in court. Laboratory testing determined that the bullet had been fired from Stroud's carbine. The evidence and Stroud's initial statements were not included in the public summary of the investigation.

A Douglas County coroner's inquest began on September 1, 1970. Twenty-two witnesses testified before a six-member, all-white jury. After 67 minutes of deliberation, the jury concluded that Rice had been killed by a person or persons unknown and that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether his death had been caused feloniously.

Rice's mother wrote to President Richard Nixon seeking a federal investigation. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest recommended that a federal agency investigate the deaths of Rice and Dowdell and called for major changes to the Lawrence Police Department. The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened an inquiry in September 1970. The Department of Justice ended the investigation without charges in November; a February 1971 departmental memorandum subsequently identified "Jimmy Joe Stroud, Police Officer" as the subject and Rice as the victim.

Rice's parents filed a civil action against the city and its police department in 1971. They obtained only part of the state investigative record during the litigation and discontinued the suit in October 1973.

Release of records and commemoration

Rice's brother, Christopher Rice, obtained a lightly redacted copy of the full Kansas Bureau of Investigation case file in 2020 after a prolonged records effort. He donated the materials to the University of Kansas in 2021. The collection, designated PP 647, also contains family correspondence, legal papers and press coverage and was made available to researchers by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

The Lawrence City Commission established a working group in 2020 to develop historical markers for Rice and Dowdell. The group included representatives of city commissions and departments, the Watkins Museum of History and both families. The city commission approved the marker texts in February 2026. Rice's marker was unveiled on July 20, 2026, at 1241 Oread Avenue. It describes Rice's life and identifies Jimmy Joe Stroud as the officer who shot him.

See also

• List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States in the 1970s

External links

• Personal papers of Harry Nicholas Rice at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library
• Who killed Nick Rice? investigative series at The Lawrence Times