You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
During this interview I'm talking with Wood County Sheriff Sean Becker on Wednesday October 7th, 2026.
Thank you for joining me Sean to bring the community an update from Wood County.
Thank you for having us, Melissa.
We always appreciate being here.
Absolutely.
It's always a pleasure to talk with you and learn about what's going on in the county.
There are some
Things that we need to talk about during this month that are difficult Being domestic abuse awareness month and we do have a couple of local Organizations that are what you want to highlight
today.
Absolutely, you know, you look at one of those unfortunate instance that you know law enforcement responds to Frequently, you know, and that's always a heightened awareness thing for law enforcement to go to that call of service
Excuse me.
You know, we'll go through that, that call, you know, help out the victim.
And then, you know, what I want to highlight are the services that we have here in Wood County, here in Wisconsin Rapids, you know, a strong partner with the family center.
And then up in Marshfield, you know, the professional development center, also very strong partnerships where anytime that we investigate these types of incidents,
we make sure that the victim connects with both of those facilities so they can provide the services that they need because sometimes the victim doesn't want to tell us everything.
you know and it's it might be more comfortable for them to talk to a counselor connected with both of those facilities so you know services can be provided you know afterwards
and
what I always felt you know throughout my career working with both of them what what always stuck out to me not just having a facility for a victim to go through uh or go to um is the follow-up that they do
you know, I remember when I was on patrol and, you know, responding to these situations, you know, going through what we need to do as law enforcement officers, and then, you know, part of policy was, okay, now, you know, connect with either one of these facilities, give them the information, especially in regards to the victim, you know, and whether or not they're going to go to either one of their safe places, you know, they'll follow up.
they'll connect with the victim and ask, how are you doing?
What can we do to help you through the situation that caused so much trauma for everybody?
So there are two resources that we have in our county that really make a difference in these situations because we only can do so much.
you know, you know, with the situation, whether we arrest somebody, take them to jail, but you can never forget about, you know, the victim because that's...
what it's really all about, you know, and hoping that once this situation, you know, is done with as far as through the court system, which unfortunately can take a while, there's still that follow up support that will continue as people, you know, utilize these services.
So I, you know, if somebody goes through an unfortunate situation like this, by all means, you need to call law enforcement so we can
you know, deal with it and help people through it.
But then you look at the aftermath of it and the follow-through that comes through with, you know, the folks that work at both of these facilities and they're great people.
Because when you're responding in that moment, emotions are high, tensions are up, it's not a situation where
people aren't necessarily thinking rationally and can even give you all of the information in that moment.
So having those extra supports somewhere to go, someone to help them with next steps and what they do next, that is a really, really important support.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a great comment to bring up because it's not just the people that are at either facility.
It's the people they connect with.
You know, it could be legal services.
Somebody might need, you know, you never know, but all of those, you know, all those opportunities are there with both both facilities.
So, you know, really unfortunate situations that we respond to, and you you're spot on by saying, you know, people might not be thinking very rational at the moment.
They might not remember everything.
You know, they could be intoxicated.
You know, there's, there's a lot of things that could be there, but then that follow through is what's, what's so important, you know, whether the people that are part of the incident stay together or not, you know, there's, there's ways to work both angles of that.
You know, it's just, um, there's great community resources that we've had and, uh, I'm very proud of, um, of both facilities and, uh, people that they connect with in the community.
It makes our, our, uh, our community safer.
I,
I would.
100% agree with that and and it is necessary for healthy communities to acknowledge that domestic abuse does happen and that we have to we have to find ways to help
the victims and maybe even sometimes help the perpetrators.
Absolutely.
They need help too.
They do and that's a great point to bring up.
You know the cause the incident happened.
People have to accept responsibility and the people that do accept responsibility and realize that you know they need help too and they take the opportunity while they're in custody.
or even outside of being in jail looking at, hey, I would hope they'd look at it as a pretty big wake up call and they need to make some changes in their life and people will be there to support them as well.
Well, another thing that we need to talk about in October, it is breast cancer awareness month and cancer affects everybody.
At this point in time, everybody knows somebody.
or has experienced it themselves.
My mom died of breast cancer.
And so that's, thank you.
It is something that we all have to be aware of and it can affect men too.
I mean, you also have a chest and you have tissues that can be attacked by cancer.
So tell me what your department does to be involved with breast cancer awareness month.
several years ago You saw a lot of you know people throughout the country, you know with law enforcement and it's not exclusive law enforcement, but you know first responders fire departments though, you know Law enforcement patches, you know fire EMS patches People like to collect those but then you know a lot of people look okay.
That's that's kind of cool, but then There's kind of a trend to change them
You know for for causes and we have a pink patch and it's not to sell to people to collect it's to show support When you see your deputies wearing the pink patches or corrections staff, it's to show support for the people that Are going through it?
Have gone through it and celebrate that they've gotten through it and as I said, I'm very sorry if you're lost but to
respect the people that went through and didn't make it.
It's an awareness thing.
And I know it's just one month, but it's a lifetime.
And it's every day because you said it, cancer affects everybody.
And whether it's breast cancer or something else, this month is breast cancer awareness month.
And I just tell people that, okay, take a pause.
You know, we all have busy lives, but think about
You know the people that have gone through it and say a prayer or
It's just a thought.
I think goes a long way.
Um, you know, um, yes, I've been through it in our family as well.
Um, and I know our department as, as well.
Um, Lieutenant Nathan Dean, his wife, Kristen battled it and, and she's been in remission for quite some time and they're celebrating the birth of their second child.
A boy is off on FMLA and they're doing great.
And I think they'd be the first to tell you is the, the community support that they had.
Um, helps them through a very tough moment.
You know, I always bring up Stan Sukho and the swing is cancer.
Um, an event that I've been supporting for, I think since it started and, uh, and it's not just.
you know, exclusively about breast cancer, but it's about, you know, people that are going through, you know, the treatment.
And it's something that is very near to my heart.
And again, for this month, when you see our deputies wearing, you know, the pink patches, it's out of what we just discussed
about.
And those that are going through it, you know, thoughts and prayers are with you.
And
We'll continue to support you.
Yeah having empathy for people who are going through something that maybe you yourself aren't or you have a Distant connection to I think I think we need more of that in our society empathy is I Don't know it helps.
Mm-hmm Yeah, true understanding of what somebody's going through Makes that individual way more comfortable to be around you
and it makes them feel heard
Yes, absolutely.
Well, I think this is a good spot to pause to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Wood County Sheriff Sean Becker and you're listening to Perspective on 1320 a.m.
97 5th FM WFHR.
Welcome, you are listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 a.m.
97 5 fm.
I'm Melissa K bringing you news in our community I've been speaking with Wood County Sheriff Sean Becker and where we left off we were talking about some of the Some of the heavier things of this month.
It's domestic abuse awareness month.
It's breast cancer awareness month There's a lot that happens in our communities that you know, it are tough things to talk about and especially in
Law enforcement itself.
There are very difficult moments and one of those here recently was the loss of Trooper Brad Ricker
Ricker
who he died in the line of duty.
So let's let's talk about this.
Yeah tough to talk about west side of the state Trooper Ricker was assisting another agency on a long police chase and he was deploying stop sticks
near an overpass.
And I don't know the details, but I know that he fell from the overpass and had critical injuries.
You know, and at the point it happened, okay, our thought is, you know,
recovery, you know, and you don't want to go to the worst case scenario.
Unfortunately, that happened.
He succumbed to his injuries and passed away.
So this is on duty death, law enforcement death.
So our thoughts and prayers are with his family first and the state trooper, you know, all the Wisconsin State Patrol.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
You're part of our team.
We're here to support you.
And as funeral arrangements come out, we'll definitely be supportive to be there.
But whenever you have a duty, a death such as this, it hurts and it hurts everybody because we're all one team.
We all work together and that's important because I always tell people when you have your
all levels of law enforcement working together you provide a safer community you know and so um he's family uh it's got state patrols family and our thoughts and prayers are with all of them
as
we move forward um through this tragedy
and i imagine once you know what the funeral arrangements are those will be posted on your facebook page and they will we'll
we'll make sure that that gets shared and um gets out to the media
okay well another um
This is a little bit different, but the 50th class of the Death Investigation School graduation took place here recently.
Death investigations outside, I mean obviously you know what happened when it's a line of duty death, but other deaths happen also all the time out in the
community.
you know, and tell people that law enforcement, when you have somebody passing away outside of a hospital, we're the first people that go to that, for obvious reasons.
So whether it's natural causes or not, you know, we're going to those.
And the death investigation school that Wisconsin Department of Justice, along with, you know, their investigation part, Department of Criminal Investigations have put on this school for
50 years now.
It's a two-week school and it's very, very informative.
I was fortunate to go to it in 2006 and I learned a lot.
You know, when I was an investigator, that was one of the, you know, things that administration said, you know, you're going to need to go to this at some point.
And
I'm very, very happy that, that I did.
And you just look at the 50 years of the commitment the state has had to host this goal and put it on.
You have investigators and detectives coming from all over the state from agencies such as Milwaukee.
police department, to smaller agencies that might be having just one investigator detective,
you
know, and the value of not just the training for me, which there was a lot of value, because the biggest thing I tell you, each death investigation is unique in itself.
You can't treat them all the same.
They're all different.
And that's out of, out of respect, you have to look at it for the family, that person as well, no matter if it's natural causes or not.
Um, the law enforcement side things, you know, you owe it to the people that, um, you know, are suffering through the situation.
Um, you know, death is hard.
It's
hard on a family and we need to do our part to be thorough, you know, and a lot of the training is just teaches you that, you know, to, to really look at that scene.
It's unique in its own.
Um, and, and, and you work to, to give.
you know, that that answer to the family.
And then, you know, you look at the networking, you know, as I mentioned, you're working with, you know, probably up to 30 other, you know, law enforcement officers that are, you know, experts in their own right, being a detective or investigator.
And then, you know, you're networking, you know, because when you have these kind of investigations, just like our department, we're not that huge.
You're going to lean on somebody else.
DCI has been phenomenal to work with.
And then our other local law enforcement agencies, that partnership as they brought up before, that's huge.
And we just sent to our investigators to the training.
Dan Barris and Eric Rosenditch both went to it.
And then Wisconsin Rapids Police Department, one of their detectives, Herman Alvarez, went.
So it's nice that three of them, they all knew each other, but I know that they, you know, connected with many other, you know,
detectives and investigators.
Yeah, and widened, like you said, widened your network and you have more people, more resources to call on when you're in.
those situations and needing advice or just a colleague to talk things through with.
Right.
And you might be connecting with somebody that has 20 plus years of experience.
Hey, let me run this value.
And the value of that, you can't put a price tag on it.
And that really comes down to that networking.
And then you look at resources as well.
you know, I brought up DCI.
When we usually get a death investigation that, you know, we're working on, they were one of our first calls and then you look at those resources that they can bring in.
And even other agencies as well, whether it's the Marathon County Sheriff's Department, Porch County Sheriff's Department, you know, local police department, you know, I was going to call and, you know, made they might have some equipment that we don't, or vice versa.
Like I said, we have a camera that takes photos of fingerprints.
You can dust them and then you can take the photograph of it and then send that to the crime lab.
Instead of doing it the old fashioned way, which I used to do.
I can say how many years ago, but you pull a print and it works.
But now you got technology evolving and some departments can afford some things, some can't.
It's just how budgets work.
all this networking is part of.
So we're going to always be committed to this type of training because I think it provides a better community service because these are the hard investigations to deal with no matter if they're a homicide to natural causes.
I always look at it, you owe it to the family and the victim.
They
need
to know the
answers.
Well, and speaking of networking, you are also in the hiring.
Let's talk a little bit about your hiring process because you are looking for some additional staff.
Yeah, recently Alexa Matthews has decided to a step away from law enforcement So we're gonna be in the process of replacing her but big hats off to Alexis Alexa, I'm sorry Appreciate that, you know the time that you spent with us being part of our team.
She did an awesome job for us So congrats to her we're gonna miss her but that puts us in that process of hiring
smart people and we're down down three people for deputy sheriff So we're working with our civil service commission.
In fact, we meet tomorrow And we're gonna establish who we're going to interview and then hopefully we'll have a couple people hired here early November then probably that third person early January we're thinking we don't want to You know be trained so many people out once they think we can your field trained officers can probably handle a couple people going through and I'd like to see
see them on solar patrol early in January, because our training program's 12 weeks, unless somebody comes in with some experience, they can go through it a little quicker, but it's still a strong established field training program.
So when you hire somebody...
You know, it's a year-long probation, but you look at you know the the 12 weeks and then after that sole patrol and then you're off probation So it's a pretty big investment for any law enforcement agency that goes through a hiring process.
So we're going through that now and Yeah, we're hoping to have three new people here, you know shortly.
Okay.
Well, so if anybody out there is interested and and would want to
Send in an application or speak with you.
How would they do that?
Online through our county human resources.
That's where we pull all the applications through that.
Once they apply then the names get sent over to us.
We have civil service commission we've had for for many years and they oversee our hiring process, but the first part is sending an application to us.
Okay, so step one.
Another thing I want to touch on briefly is the Andrew Mueller Foundation and that was the tragic death of a young man who succumbed to an allergic reaction because there wasn't an EpiPen there and available quickly enough.
And his family has since then worked really hard to try to get epinephrine to first responders.
And there are some recent steps
forward.
I have to call Andrew's dad a friend, Mark, just with the outreach.
And he did shortly after the tragic passing of Andrew, just having some peanut M&M's that he was allergic to, and then going through the tragedy that affected.
a lot of people, and shortly after that, this movement that the family was behind was getting us equipped with EpiPens.
It's just astonishing.
you
know,
what they've been doing and Mark connected with police chief Brandon Abbott over in Port Edwards and his nonprofit and together they've been just, they've been getting this out like
you wouldn't
believe to law enforcement agencies.
Recently Mark came in and talked about his story with several local police chiefs in central Wisconsin.
And then he had handed off that depends to the Wapaka Police Department there.
But just hearing the story, and I was invited to come and be part of the presentation, which is hard,
you know,
because I remember a meeting mark and he had left a message to talk about this.
And I'm like, and I already knew what happened.
And this wasn't very long after the tragedy occurred.
And what do you say?
you know, we had a good conversation and the passion, you know, the grief is there, always will be, but hey, let's try to do something in Andrew's name to help save lives.
And it is.
Yeah.
You know, just recently we had one just outside of Marshfield where Jesse D'Epinell's responded to somebody that was having an allergic reaction to bee stings and saved their life, you know, and that's all because of
um, of Mark and the Mueller family, uh, assuring that we're going to get our law enforcement officers, you know, the, the EpiPens, you know, so even after, you know, that, that last presentation, we'll pack a police department.
Like I said, um, is, is got theirs.
Um, I connected them with, uh, Marquette County Sheriff's department.
Uh, their chief deputies got Johnston and heard about this and Hey, we want to be part of this.
And that's been happening.
for quite a few sheriff's departments throughout the state.
That is wonderful.
Yeah, so Mueller family, Mark, you're making a difference and you're saving lives and we appreciate you.
Well, we're running a little bit long here, Sheriff Becker, but I don't care.
Let's talk about Jordan Love and the Rehabilitation Center for First Responders because responding to these incidents where Andrew didn't make it.
And that is a really difficult, not only for the family, but for the people responding to those incidents where they want to save the person.
And when they can't, that takes a toll on them mentally.
And you and I have talked many times about the importance of mental health and the importance of having support for first responders in those situations.
And this is something that Jordan Love
is doing.
So let's talk about this briefly.
Yeah, there are some things come together called the Tolorean Center down in Iowa County.
And it's going to be a treatment facility that does exactly what you mentioned.
It's going to be something to help the first responders, law enforcement, fire, EMS have a place to go that's exclusive to help them through mental health crisis.
Um, or addiction or a combination of both.
Um, Jordan love has a story.
I would suggest that, you know, anybody that's listening that wants to know about it should, should watch the YouTube, um, advertisement or, um, I would say that's the best word for it or he starts off the, um, you know, talking about this and his personal connection on the why his parents were both law enforcement officers.
One of them are not living today and he
He has that story.
So having that personal connection and seeing what happens with law enforcement and all first responders to have them part of it is very proud of.
And it's going to be something that as anybody that struggles in the community, they should get help.
And that should be celebrated.
Unfortunately, the field that I'm in
It wasn't looked on like that that you should you know years ago.
There's a stigma attached to it Especially years ago where I think the more conversations we have like this is helping to live that a little bit because everybody struggles we all struggle But when you're in these these really high stress high Impact jobs that's even more so
Absolutely, and when I started the career it's like are you tough enough?
You know, you're going to see things that you can't unsee.
But
you need to retain your humanity.
Correct.
And, you know, in the position that I have been in or I'm in now, you know, that's changed.
It was changing before.
And it's not just me.
I believe in it.
I strongly believe in our wellness.
And it's just exciting to see another opportunity that we can, you know,
send somebody to and then return them to the field because a lot of the times you see it's too late.
You know, and I personally can say that because I've gone through it with friends and you know, you always, what if that is not as a friend, but as an administrator, could you have done more?
Well, here's something that is there now that maybe could have done it because the goal is to get that person better and get him back on the street.
And this is going to be something that is going to be a great thing for the state of Wisconsin and all of our first responders.
And an excellent, just another support.
And we all need support sometimes.
Yes, we do.
Well, we're going to have to wrap it up there.
I'm Melissa Kay, speaking with Sheriff Sean Becker of the Wood County Sheriff Department.
Thank you for talking with me today, Sean.
Always a pleasure, and we will miss you.
And I appreciate every interview we've done.
And good luck with the future.
Thank you.
Always
have your back.
Thank you very
much.
And thank you to listeners joining us for news in our community on perspective, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.