Parents plan police academy scholarship with settlement money from son’s deadly 2019 encounter with police

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    Maquoketa, IA (WQAD) — Barbara and Walter Edwards have countless memories with their son Drew.

They say he loved everything outdoors, hunting and fishing, building sheds and tinkering with cars.

“You couldn’t help but love him,” his father says. “It was just the way he was. Most giving kid I’ve ever seen.”

Barbara and Walter adopted their distant nephew when he was just a few years old.

“I’m not bragging, well I am bragging. But I’ll tell you what, if every guy had been like him this would’ve been one good world,” Walter says.

“If he would’ve been given the chance to live, we think he could’ve made a lot of change in a lot of people’s lives,” Barbara says.

But Drew’s life was cut short.

On June 15, 2019, a Jackson County Sheriff’s deputy and a Maquoketa police officer encountered Drew. They were called in for a domestic dispute. Body camera video shows Drew not complying with their commands and when he resisted further, they tased him, six times in total. Drew died of a heart attack.

“It don’t seem real to me,” Walter says. “It don’t seem real. It don’t seem like it happened. Someone will come in the door and (I think), ‘Maybe that’s drew coming in.'”

An autopsy found several drugs in Drew’s system that day. His parents say they had tried to get him help with his addiction on at least three different occasions. But they say it was difficult for the 22-year-old to overcome.

Now the Edwards are settling a wrongful death lawsuit with the City of Maquoketa. Once it’s all said and done, they’ll be awarded about $4.5 million.

Barbara and Walter say they want to start a scholarship for the police academy with that money. They say whoever gets the scholarship will learn about their son.

“Because everybody that goes to police academy can at least hear a little bit about what happened to drew and maybe keep it from happening to someone else,” Barbara says.

The Edwards say they also want to help out their other kids and grandkids with some of the money, as well as donating to the schools and food pantry in Maquoketa.

They’re keeping his memory alive, hoping he can still help change other people’s lives for the better.

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