The people who knew and loved Milwaukee Police Officer Peter Jerving fully understand the perils of policing.
Jerving (pictured above), 37, was fatally shot by a robbery suspect in the line of duty on Febuary 7, the first of four officers killed on the job in the past few months. It has been the deadliest year in decades for Badger State law enforcers.
Jerving, a lifelong Milwaukee resident, had been with the police department for four years. But he wanted to be a police officer ever since he was a boy, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said.
“Within the first five minutes of talking to him, I knew that he was someone special,” Milwaukee Police District 4 Capt. Bradley Schlei said of his fallen comrade at his Feb. 13 funeral. “I knew he had dedication and heart and a drive to do this job and serve this community that was way above. He was special.”
As Wisconsin Public Radio reported, Jerving received the Milwaukee Police Department’s Lifesaving Award last year, after he and another officer helped provide medical care to a gunshot victim. Jerving also helped extinguish a fire from the victim’s car after it caught on fire during the incident.
That’s the kind of dedication found in the people committed to protect and to serve their communities.
“I had big plans for Peter, but God had bigger plans,” Schlei said.
Today’s 33rd Annual Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial Ceremony at the Capitol will be especially poignant as law enforcement officials, politicians, and community members gather to remember the four officers killed most recently in the line of duty — among the many others who have over the years given the last full measure of service to their communities.
They include:
- St. Croix County Deputy Kaitie Leising, 29, shot dead earlier this month while responding to a drunken driving call in the northwest Wisconsin township of Glenwood.
- Officer Emily Breidenbach, 32, a five-year veteran of the Chetek Police Department, and Hunter Scheel, 23, an officer serving the Village of Cameron, were killed last month in a shootout after attempting to serve a warrant in a traffic stop.
- Jerving, fatally shot on an early February morning in Milwaukee by 19-year-old robbery suspect Terrell Thompson.
“This year has been really tough,” said Andrew Wagner, president of the Milwaukee Police Association. Wagner said he’s never seen anything like it in his long career in law enforcement.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise what we’re seeing,” he added. “What we are seeing is the emboldening of criminals who see no repercussions for their actions.”
Milwaukee set another dubious mark in 2022, breaking its homicide record for the third straight year in a row.
Attacks on police nationwide have soared in recent years. The Fraternal Order of Police reported 141 officers were shot in the first five months of 2022, 21 of whom were killed. That number was up 10 percent from that time period in 2021, and 20 percent from this period in 2020, NewsNationNow reported.
More than 320 officers were shot in the line of duty last year, with at least 60 killed, according to the police organization.
“This past year has been one of the most dangerous years for law enforcement in recent history due to the increase of violence directed towards law enforcement officers as well as the nationwide crime crisis, which has seen criminals emboldened by the failed policies of pandering prosecutors and cynical politicians,” said Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. “Frankly, it is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 36 years of law enforcement.”
Anti-police sentiment enflamed by the death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020 and the proliferation of the left-led “defund the police” movement that followed has eroded law enforcement safety — and morale.
In Minnesota, where Floyd died at the hands of a police officer, assaults against police officers jumped an eye-popping 140 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Violent crime, in many cases, is repeat crime in “social justice” systems of justice that keep releasing the same criminals from jail. The combination of repeat violent offenders and a rhetorical assault by anti-police elected officials has hit law enforcement numbers hard in recent years.
Wisconsin had fewer than 13,400 law enforcement officers in 2022, a record low, according to the state Department of Justice. The ranks were down from 2021 when the state counted more than 13,500, PBS reported in August. That’s more than 1,000 officers lost since the record 14,400 reported in 2008.
“It’s tough. Everyone is fighting for the same pool of people who want to be police officers,” Wagner said.
The police union chief believes the pendulum is swinging back to more support in communities for police officers. In truth, he acknowledges, backing the blue never really left. It’s just been drown out by so-called social justice warriors and loud politicians, often with ulterior motives.
They’re still out there.
On Thursday, the House passed a resolution condemning drives to defund or abolish the police. More than half of House Democrats voted against the measure.
The non-binding resolution on this National Police Week recognizes the “dedication and devotion demonstrated by the men and women of local law enforcement who keep our communities safe,” and “condemns calls to defund, disband, dismantle, or abolish the police.”
Liberal house members didn’t care for the resolution’s language that asserts “leftist activists and progressive politicians called for the defunding and dismantling of local police departments across the country and actively encouraged resentment toward local law enforcement.”
In other words, they weren’t keen on the truth.
“I resent the characterization that somehow we progressives do not support law enforcement just because we want to have accountability in our community so that Black and Brown people can walk down the street and feel safe,” Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Jayapal has been a staunch supporter of defunding — or diverting funds from — the police. She has joined a chorus of leftists that have demonized police in recent years.
“It is completely reasonable for us to shift significant resources from law enforcement and investing in people,” she told KUOW in 2020, as Black Lives Matter-led, anti-police demonstrations and riots were gripping the country.
“We have to completely reimagine what community safety looks like. That starts with investing significantly in the things that take away racial injustice in our systems, racism in our systems,” the lawmaker said at the time.
Jayapal proved prophetic. Many cities and counties in the U.S. have indeed “reimagined” what community safety looks like — and it has been a horrific vision of disorder, lawlessness, and violence.
And officers down.
Like Jerving, one of Milwaukee’s finest.
“Thank you, Peter, for being an example of what a man is to be, so that my own sons – I have four – when they grow up I hope that they will follow in your example of love and kindness, joy, steadfastness and hard work,” Sgt. Wes Jerving of the Oak Creek Police Department, said at his cousin’s funeral.
“Thank you, Peter.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Peter Jerving” by Village of Windsor Police Department.
