A 17 year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon.
Police chief Alfonso Morales says Michael Michalski was shot and killed by a suspect as officers were conducting a warrant check for drug and weapons violations.
“When the officers approached, they did encounter the suspect at the residence, and the suspect fired shots at our Milwaukee police officers.”
An eyewitness to the events says at first he thought he was seeing a routine traffic stop, but it quickly became apparent this was anything but routine.
“I don’t know if they was ready to run into his house, or if it was just a traffic stop, but you could see the man get right out the car and just get to shooting and yelling ‘I’m not going back to jail, ya’ll going to have to kill me’.”
Officers formed a procession to escort Michalski from the hospital to the medical examiner’s office. At the medical examiner’s office hundreds of people gathered, most of them members of the law enforcement community but there were also many ordinary citizens who wanted to pay their respects to the office.
“Milwaukee MPD is one of the finest in the state if not the country, and for citizens to come up, there’s a couple of us here that come to support, it’s not just me.”
The suspect is in custody, and the district attorney says this case will be pursued to the full extent of the law.
