Slain Wisconsin deputy Kaitie Leising memorialized: 'We are never going to let her go'

HUDSON, Wis. — A feisty sheriff's deputy, a wife and a mother, Kaitlin R. "Kaitie" Leising was remembered Friday by heartbroken family and colleagues as a woman with a big personality, wit and kindness.

Her funeral drew about 3,000 people, including 1,500 law enforcement officers , who mourned her death May 6 in a roadside shooting. It was the third fatal shooting of an on-duty officer in the region in a month.

Leising was sworn into the St. Croix County Sheriff's Office less than a year ago. In that short time, she won commendations and her colleagues' admiration, Sheriff Scott Knudson said.

"There was so much to like about Kaitie," he said.

The ceremonies stretched over six hours as officers first arrived for a visitation, then sat for the funeral, before silently marching to the high school parking lot for an honor guard, gun salute and helicopter flyover.

After the funeral, a law enforcement procession drove the casket to a private gathering of family in Baldwin, Wis.

The funeral drew police officers and sheriff's deputies from across Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest.

The night she was killed, Leising responded to a routine call of a possible drunken driver stuck in a ditch near Glenwood City, about 60 miles east of the Twin Cities. She arrived and spoke face-to-face with the driver, Jeremiah D. Johnson, 34, for about eight minutes before he suddenly turned and fired a handgun, Knudson said.

Leising returned fire, shooting three times, but Johnson ran away. His body was found in a wooded area. He had a gunshot wound, and a handgun was found near his body, authorities said. Leising was taken to a hospital and died there, authorities said.

Friday morning, solemn mourners made their way through the halls of Hudson High School to the gymnasium, where Leising's flag-draped casket waited. Nearby were flowers and a video montage of photos from her life. For three hours, her family members welcomed people to the visitation, hugging them one by one.

"This isn't how things are supposed to be," pastor Larry Szyman of Faith Community Church in Hudson said at the funeral. "This amazing woman should still be with us."

Born seven weeks premature, Leising, 29, was a scrappy fighter, recalled her father, Roger Stevens. (His written statement and those of other family and friends were read at the funeral by St. Croix County Sheriff's deputies Aaron Boldt and Fred Mangine.)

Stevens joked in his statement that he liked to play golf with his daughter "until she started to beat me." He also recalled how they listened to music together, to "jam out," as Leising would say, to Billy Joel and REO Speedwagon.

Her mother, Kris Stevens, wrote that the smile in Leising's pictures was the one she wore daily, sometimes while landing zingers with her quick wit.

Courtney Leising, Kaitie's wife, said she wouldn't trade anything for the eight years they had together. But she said she was "completely heartbroken" that their 3-month-old son, Syler, will grow up without both of them.

Leising's sister Jordyn remembered her as inspiring and confident with a competitive streak that went beyond golf and basketball to board games and cribbage.

Her uncle Tom recalled a time when Leising, at 4 years old, took his hand on his wedding day and, sensing that he was nervous, told him, "It's going to be OK."

"She was very intuitive and knew what to say when someone needed it," he wrote.

Mangine, speaking at the funeral, said the event felt surreal. Leising was a charismatic and cheerful person who could calm people down, he said.

When she became a mother this year, Mangine said, he could see the happiness that it brought her. "She was loving; she was a warrior. That's Katie," he said.

Mangine then addressed the officers at the funeral. He said he knew some might be questioning whether to stay in the profession. He told them to write down all of the bad things about the job, then crumple up the paper and throw it away. Evil resides among us, he said, near our communities and families.

"Now, more than ever, our communities need good cops," Mangine said.

Holding up Leising as an example of someone who did the job the right way, Knudson, the St. Croix County sheriff, said her name would never be forgotten .

"What a bright, shining star; we are never going to let her go," he said.