Hundreds of police among mourners for slain Wisconsin deputy sheriff
May 12, 2023, 1:22 PM
Law enforcement members comfort each other after St. Croix County Deputy Kaitie Leising's body was carried into a Baldwin, Wis., funeral home Sunday afternoon, May 7, 2023. Leising was shot and killed during a traffic stop Saturday. (Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via AP)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via AP)
HUDSON, Wis. (AP) — Hundreds of law enforcement officers from several states joined other mourners in paying final respects Friday to a Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy who was fatally shot by a suspected drunken driver during a traffic stop.
The funeral for St. Croix County Sheriff’s Deputy Kaitlin “Kaitie” R. Leising was held in the gymnasium of Hudson High School while a montage of photos from her life were shown on a large screen overhead. Leising’s family, including her wife, Courtney, and their 3-month-old son, Syler, stood to the side of the casket, hugging visitors.
Mourners included a large delegation from the Pennington County, South Dakota, Sheriff’s Office, where Leising worked before moving to St. Croix County last year.
After the funeral, a law enforcement procession was scheduled to take her casket from the high school in Hudson to a church in Baldwin.
Leising, 29, was slain May 6 in Glenwood, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Minneapolis. Leising and the driver she pulled over, Jeremiah Johnson, were discussing field sobriety tests when he drew a handgun and shot her, the Wisconsin Department of Justice has said. She discharged her weapon three times, but none of the rounds hit Johnson before he fled to a nearby wooded area. Leising was pronounced dead at a hospital.
An hour after the shooting, an officer heard a gunshot in the woods. Johnson, 34, killed himself, investigators said.
Leising’s death was the third fatal shooting of an on-duty law enforcement officer in western Wisconsin in a month, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
