State trooper, other fallen officers remembered
Clarke also pushes back against criticism of U.S. police practices
Wisconsin State Trooper Trevor Casper, killed during a shootout with a bank robber in Fond du Lac, is among fallen officers honored during the annual Greater Milwaukee Law Enforcement Memorial ceremony.
Wisconsin State Trooper Trevor Casper was killed during a shootout with a bank robber in Fond du Lac, but his legacy has reached across the state.
Casper, 21, was remembered Wednesday during the annual Greater Milwaukee Law Enforcement Memorial ceremony, which honors officers killed in the line of duty.
Casper had yearned to be a Wisconsin state trooper, once telling his parents that he was “born ready to do this job,” and was on his first solo patrol when he was killed in March.
“Little did he know, not long after taking that oath of service . . . he would be called home,” Gov. Scott Walker said.
The ceremony recognized Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Deputy Earl R. Haslam, who died in an on-duty motorcycle crash in 1929, and Milwaukee Police Officers Rosario Collura, who was fatally shot by a suspect, and Albert Kohn, who died in 1975 of a heart attack after running after an armed robbery suspect.
Collura and his partner, Leonard Lesnieski, had stopped to question several people in an alley in 1985 and as Lesnieski frisked one of them, the man panicked, pulled a gun from his pocket and shot the officers.
“Our families both struggled to make sense of what we faced at County Hospital that day 30 years ago,” said Katherine Moczynski, Collura’s widow and the mother of his son, Ross, who now serves on the Hartland Police Department.
“Lives matter,” she said later. “All life is special.”
Collura’s legacy and those of other fallen officers continue through the actions of others, Attorney General Brad Schimel said.
“Your memory lives on not just on this day, not just during this ceremony, but whenever Captain Ross Collura puts on his Hartland police uniform; whenever Chaplain Mary Kay Balchunas provides comfort to law enforcement who are struggling; and whenever troops at the Wisconsin State Patrol get behind the wheel of their squads,” he said.
Balchunas’ son, Jay Balchunas, was a Wisconsin Department of Justice special agent who was gunned down in 2004 as he was leaving a Milwaukee gas station in what was later called a bungled holdup.
The Milwaukee Police Department, along with the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office and the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executives Association, planned this year’s event, which took place at the Milwaukee Theatre.
The annual event usually focuses solely on fallen officers and their families. This year, Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. also pushed back against recent nationwide criticism and discussion of police practices in the wake of officer-involved shootings and custody deaths.
“What must they be thinking now as their profession is denigrated, as their brotherhood is slandered, and they lie in eternal sleep unable to rise to defend their reputations and the reputations of those who work in their stead,” Clarke said.
Soon after he spoke, Milwaukee Police Association President Mike Crivello — who said the union believes in “relentless advocating” for onthe-job safety — called for two officers assigned in every squad car, the end of furloughs and the filling of vacant positions.
“To those that truly value and believe all lives matter, have your voice heard,” Crivello said.
The association represents about 1,600 rankand-file members of the Milwaukee Police Department and founded the annual memorial ceremony.
“What must they be thinking now as their profession is denigrated, as their brotherhood is slandered, and they lie in eternal sleep unable to rise to defend their reputations and the reputations of those who work in their stead.”
Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.