By Eric Litke
The Green Bay Press Gazette
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A 19-year-old Sheboygan Falls man was killed and a Sheboygan County sheriff’s deputy was injured early this morning in a crash in the town of Wilson.
The deputy was responding to a call about 1:30 a.m. when the man ran a stop sign and crossed his path, according to a press release from sheriff’s Capt. Cory Roeseler.
The deputy — Brent J. Multer, 36, of Sheboygan Falls — was southbound on Sheboygan County OK and the man was westbound on Stahl Road, which has a stop sign at OK. The intersection is about a half-mile east of Interstate 43 on Sheboygan’s far southwest side.
The 19-year-old’s vehicle was hit by the squad car and rolled into the ditch southwest of the intersection, striking a telephone pole before coming to rest upside down. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
Multer’s squad car also entered the west ditch and caught fire, stopping upright about 100 yards south of the other car. The fire gutted the squad, but Multer was able to escape with help from other officers who arrived on scene, Roeseler said. He was treated and released at St. Nicholas Hospital.
The Wisconsin State Patrol — which is handling the investigation — will not release the victim’s name until tomorrow, said State Patrol Lt. Nick Scorcio.
The intersection of OK and Stahl Road is atop a hill that would have at least partially obscured the deputy’s view of Stahl Road as he approached from the north.
Multer, a seven-year veteran of the department, had been responding to the intersection of Sheboygan County OK and V where a motorcyclist had crashed about 1:20 a.m. after fleeing Sheboygan police at speeds of more than 100 mph, city police said. That chase had been called off moments before the suspect crashed due to the high speed.
Multer was called to assist because the motorcycle driver, who was allegedly drunk, was resisting arrest, authorities said. Scorcio said investigators do not yet know whether Multer’s lights and siren were on.
The State Patrol will conduct the investigation because of the deputy’s involvement, Scorcio said. Their investigators were on scene this morning and closed OK between Riverdale Avenue and V until shortly before 10 a.m., examining the cars and taking measurements for accident reconstruction.
“Any time another agency has an officer involved in some kind of serious accident … typically they ask another agency to come in and do an investigation to keep the impartiality,” Scorcio said.
Scorcio said the investigation will include examining the squad car’s event data recorder, which records speed and other information.
“The car did — quite a bit of it — burn, but we’ll see what’s available,” Scorcio said.
Scorcio said no information was immediately available on were the Sheboygan Falls man was going, and there are not believed to be any witnesses to the crash. He did not know whether alcohol was a factor in the crash.
Investigators do not yet know whether video footage of the crash was shot or survived the fire, sheriff’s Capt. Dave Adams said. He said the State Patrol has ordered that footage and radio transmissions after the crash not be released while the investigation is ongoing.
Adams said this is the first fatal crash involving a sheriff’s deputy in about 20 years.
The squad is the third sheriff’s department car totaled in just over a month. An 18-year-old Random Lake man pulled in front of a deputy June 16 in Random Lake. Another squad was totaled June 20 after spinning out on loose gravel during a high-speed chase that left suspect Charles J. Meyer critically injured, officials said.
Copyright 2008 The Green Bay Press Gazette