Hundreds of officers gather to mourn Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy shot by drunk driver

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.

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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.

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Leising, 29, was slain May 6 in Glenwood, about 60 miles 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.