By Bill Beck
The Elkhart Truth
ELKHART, Ind. — Bruce Anglemyer said he was numb and barely found words.
“Yesterday was really a tough day for us,” said Anglemyer, an Elkhart Police Department corporal who’s been on the job since 1989. “The passing of Steve, then with Mike ... I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ It’s hard to believe this could be happening to two good friends.”
On back-to-back days, Anglemyer and the Elkhart police fraternity have dealt with the stunning deaths of former colleagues.
Steve Stewart, 51, a 24-year officer who retired in last year, died at his home on Wednesday.
Mike Posthuma, 57, who served 28 years before his 2011 retirement, was killed Thursday in a car-motorcycle accident in Elkhart.
Department emotions were already raw after last week’s discovery of Liliana Hernandez, 7, and Rene Pasztor, 6, dead in a car on Marion Street behind the Elkhart police headquarters after they were allegedly murdered by their mother.
Now this week.
Police Chief Ed Windbigler’s voice nearly cracked as he talked about breaking the news to Thursday’s afternoon shift.
“I hate being emotional, but yesterday in the afternoon briefing was a little tough. Two days in a row telling our guys, that we lost another — it’s still messing with me,” Windbigler said. “That we’ve lost another brother in two days, and this on the heels with two baby deaths that really affected some of our officers.
“It’s never easy to lose a family member and whether you’re like Steve, who’s been out one year, or someone like Mike since 2011, you’re still family,” he said. “When you’re hit with it two in two days, it’s like a 1-2 punch.”
Unique personalities
Stewart and Posthuma proudly wore their uniforms and served with unique styles.
As a field training officer, Stewart got the chance to work with many of Elkhart’s younger officers as they came through the ranks.
“Steve, he had the charisma where everybody gravitated toward him. He was one of those guys,” Windbigler said. “He always worked the midnight shift. That’s where he wanted to be, that’s where he stayed.”
Stewart also displayed a drive and passion that made him a role model of sorts on the department, according to Sgt. Chris Snyder.
“Steve was very self-determined. It was almost comical on how focused he was,” Snyder said. “One time he said, ‘Hey, I’m getting heavy, I need to lose some weight,’ and then a few weeks later, he says, ‘Yeah, I’m running five, six miles a day.’ He just started.
“Years later, he wanted to learn Spanish. He worked in the downtown area and he learned to speak to the point where he was an interpreter and helped us work through situations,” Snyder said. “He did it himself because he wanted to.”
Then there was the spirited Posthuma, an energetic man who stepped up to help friends and colleagues at a moment’s notice. A skilled firearms instructor and SWAT team member, he also had an eye in his down time for trade skills – from construction to electronics.
On and off the job, Posthuma was regularly helping someone.
“Mike didn’t do things half-assed. If you needed something, Mike had the knowledge, he had the tools, and if he didn’t have it, he went out and got it,” said Cpl. Norm Friend, a 30-year member of the department. “He was a good friend.”
“He was always fixing something,” Windbigler said of Posthuma. “He sided my house when I lived on County Road 15, he roofed the lodge at Cop’r Canyon. Many people relied on Mike. If something was broken, he knew how to fix it. He could do about anything.”
“Both really cared about people,” Snyder said. “He helped me do a roof, and I don’t know how many times I’d go some place to help somebody do something and there he was. It didn’t matter if it was work-related or something outside of work. He would be there.”
Officers together
Then there were those fun times when others were there for Posthuma and Stewart.
Friend shared a story that happened long before officers utilized in-car computers for information and searches, a day when officers had to use old-fashioned maps for locations. As Stewart searched for a building with an activated fire alarm in an industrial area on Elkhart’s far east side, Friend and other officers arrived well ahead of him.
“I was on the midnight shift with Steve and I think he was with a canine then and they had just annexed all of the factories on Eastland Drive,” Friend said. “They sent Steve as well, with the dog, to do a search. We all got out there, we have it searched – he can’t find it. We kept asking, ‘Where’s he at? Where’s he at?’
“So three or four of us got a bunch of road flares and lined them up in the road as a big arrow. He’s coming down the road and he pulls up and is just laughing,” Friend said. “He took it in stride. It was his personality. He was liked by everybody.”
Family, friends and colleagues will remember Stewart and Posthuma. They’ll share stories, reflect and mourn in the coming days.
For all involved, it’s been a draining, emotional time.
“We deal with death and things like this continuously,” Windbigler said. “But when you deal with your own family deaths – this will make us stronger, make us tighter, make us a better organization doing this together. It’s our responsibility to make sure our people are doing well.”
Said Snyder, “You know they’ve helped train you and create who you are. You talk to people, you talk to them and they were enjoying their retirement. They were happy with where they (were) in life and to have it happen back-to-back so tragically, it’s certainly been difficult.”