St. Croix County Sheriff’s deputy shot, killed after responding to drunk driving incident
A St. Croix County Sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed in the Town of Glenwood after responding to a report of a potential drunk driver in a ditch Saturday night, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The officer has been identified as St. Croix County Sheriff’s Deputy Kaitie Leising, 29, who started with St. Croix in 2022 and prior to that worked for two years with the Pennington County Sheriffs' Office in South Dakota.
Bodycam footage of the incident showed that around 6:15 p.m. on Saturday Leising was dispatched to the drunk driving incident. Upon arriving Leising tried to administer a sobriety test, but the driver, 34-year-old Jeremiah D. Johnson, was evasive.
After eight minutes of talking with Leising, Johnson turned and shot the officer once and then fled the scene. Leising fired at Johnson three times, but none of them would strike him. Leising was transported to a hospital where she died from the injuries.
Additional officers arrived after Leising was shot and searched the wooded area near the scene. About an hour after Deputy Leising had been shot, an officer observed Johnson, heard a gunshot and saw him collapse to the ground. A gun was found next to Johnson's body.
“Our love and condolences go out to the family of Kaitie Leising and all those with whom she served," St. Croix County Sheriff Scott L. Knudson said in a statement. "We, as a law enforcement family, will do everything possible to continue to provide support and comfort to her family. We will miss her infectious smile and personality. She will be missed by all she touched."
Other members of the community in St. Croix and Rapid City, S.D., remembered Leising as a "professional, kind, responsive and very friendly" officer, according to responses on the police departments' social media pages.
The Division of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation and will be assisted by a handful of neighboring law enforcement agencies including the Wisconsin State Patrol, Wisconsin State Crime Lab and a DCI Crime Response Specialist. The DOJ also said that all involved law enforcement are fully cooperating with DCI during this investigation.
DCI is continuing to review evidence to determine the facts of this incident and will turn over investigative reports to the St. Croix County District Attorney when the investigation concludes.
This is the fourth death of a Wisconsin officer in the line of duty this year
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, a website that tracks deaths in the line of duty across the country, this incident represents Wisconsin's fourth officer death in the line of duty this year. No Wisconsin officers died in the line of duty in 2022.
The four line-of-duty deaths this year mean that, after just four months, 2023 is already the second-highest year for officer deaths in 20 years — the highest was 2021 when Wisconsin saw five law enforcement fatalities.
Leising's death comes just a month after two officers — Emily Breidenbach, of the Chetek Police Department, and Hunter Scheel, of the Cameron Police Department — were shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop in Barron County.
The shooter in that incident, 50-year-old Glenn Douglas Perry, was shot in an exchange of fire with the officers and later died at a local hospital.
In February the first police death of the year occurred when Milwaukee Police Officer Peter Jerving was shot and killed while seeking to arrest a suspect in Milwaukee.
In that case, gunfire was exchanged between Jerving and the fleeing suspect leaving both Jerving and the suspect, Terrell Thompson, dead.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin deputy killed in St. Croix County; Jeremiah Johnson gunman
