http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/101905-6948-092.html
Mishawaka mourns shooting of 2 officers
By John Tuohy
[email protected]
December 13, 2003
Two Mishawaka policemen were shot and killed today in the first on-duty police deaths in the city's 170-year history.
Residents of the small, northern Indiana city streamed by the police station for hours today dropping off flowers and condolence cards to honor the officers.
"We just aren't used to something like this," said Mayor Robert Beutter. "It's something like 17-degrees out and people have been coming by all day."
Police Cpl. Thomas Roberts and Patrolman Bryan Verkler were shot at 2 a.m. today trying to arrest a man with a gun, said Police Chief Matt Weber.
Roberts died at the scene, and Verkler died in surgery around 4 a.m. at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in South Bend.
The officers had responded to calls of gunshots being fired in a house, but when they arrived there they were told the gunman had gone to a house two blocks away.
While attempting to arrest the man an hour later both officers were shot, police said. The gunman, who police have not identified, was also killed.
Weber would not say whether the gunman was shot by the officers or killed himself.
WNDU-TV in South Bend quoted a witness to the struggle, Andrew Moreno, as saying that after the unidentified suspect shot the officers outside the home, he took his own life.
"He came inside and sat in our kitchen and reloaded his gun and sat there looking at his wounds. He then said, 'I can't take this anymore.' He told us to leave. ... We walked to the doorway still looking at him, he cocked the gun and put it up against his head, and we said, 'No!' but by that time he had pulled the trigger," Moreno told WNDU.
The gunman's identity was withheld pending notification of his relatives.
Roberts was a 14-year veteran who worked the midnight shift his whole career. He had two children.
He took jobs painting houses on the side and liked to play the card game euchre, softball and basketball, said former police Chief Tony Hazen.
Verkler had been on the job 2 years and had married his wife, Julie, about four months ago.
"He was a farm boy and a hunter," Hazen said.
Mishawaka, a city of 50,000 near South Bend, has a police force of 103 officers. The last homicide in the city was three years ago.
Roberts' and Verkler's police car were parked in front of the station today and both were covered with flowers dropped off by friends, relatives and citizens.
"There has been a outpouring of concern from the public," Hazen said.
Beutter said police officials have been consoling the families of the officers.
"This is a small police department and everybody knows and cares about everybody else," he said.
Teams from other departments, including the Indianapolis Police Department, were in town to help make service arrangements, he said.
"People with more experience at this kind of thing will show us what to do," Beutter said.
