Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Wednesday, March 5th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. mail-off here, and we're welcoming today to the studio our
friends from the Wood County Sheriff's Department.
We have Sheriff Sean Becker with us, Sean.
Good to see you.
Great to see you, as always.
You brought a guest with you?
I call him a victim.
It's another word for it.
That's another word.
We could have used that.
Doug's been on the show before.
We were just talking, I think, the last time he was on the show is when the radio station
was at the other building.
I don't know how long has it been since you guys have been here?
Boy, it's been about three years or so.
I didn't realize it had been that long, Doug.
I thought it'd been a while.
Good to see you.
Thanks for being here.
He's reminiscing that he's been dodging the bolt to come here, I guess the past three
years.
But the reason why, one of the biggest reasons why he's with us today is he's retiring.
His last day is going to be coming up this month on March 18th, and I thought this was
a great opportunity to come in and make him do all the talking from the last hour, and
I could just sit here and smile.
Looking forward to touching on that and some other things that you have for us as well,
Sean.
Do you want to send a big shout out to all of our good friends over at Wisconsin's Ravs
Cune in media.
Appreciate the gang over there.
Do yourself a favor.
Type in your YouTube search bar with Wisconsin Ravs community media and subscribe to their
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Keep up to date and all the cool things they're doing over there.
Sean, since we have Doug here, you want to start right there?
You want to start with this?
You know, I'm nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's rip the bandaid off.
Doug, let's go and die right here.
Here we go.
There we go.
Doug, for you, I know that we're talking about the end of a career here and everything,
and I appreciate your service very much.
If you don't mind, I want to rewind for a second, though.
What made you get into this line of work?
Boy, that's been a long, long time ago.
My family is a trucking family.
So I've gotten to hear a lot of stories about different officers through the years that
they've had interactions with, some good, some bad, but really focused on the good interactions
and I wanted to be able to do that.
So yeah, that's a great answer, great answer.
When it comes to your early days in this, did you know right away, this is the right line
of work for me?
Did you have doubts early in your career with it?
No, I knew right away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting to me.
I talked to you in whatever job they're doing or walk a life or something.
It seems like, well, yeah, there was a day where I don't know, it was really hard or something
like that.
I talked to police officers, firefighters, anybody like that.
Nope.
Nope.
No doubt.
None.
It's just interesting.
You know, it's not saying anything one way or the other about these jobs or these types of
people.
I just, there's really, we use this phrase a lot, but there's a reason.
There is a calling to it, and you heard that call right away.
Yes, it did.
How long have you been in service, Sean talked about this a little bit, but how long have
you been doing this and what kind of jobs have you done in the time that you've been serving
our community?
So I'll be retiring just shy of 30 years.
I started off with the Wisconsin State Patrol.
That was my first time, or my first full-time spot.
I worked for about a year as a state patrol inspector, so I was working right directly
with the trucking industry, and then I moved into a trooper spot.
And from there, I came back to Wood County.
I know talking with Sean about this and Sean has brought in some retired officers, and
we've talked about this a little bit.
This is one of those jobs where you retire, but you don't really, you don't really leave
completely.
That badge doesn't necessarily completely be removed.
When it comes to keeping connections with the community, with your fellow officers, your
friends over there, you're looking forward to doing that, or are you heading to Florida?
Are you heading out?
Actually, I just got back from Florida.
Did you?
That's all right.
That's where you came back.
No, I'll definitely keep those connections open and stay involved.
I appreciate that the feedback on those last couple of questions, because one of the things
we like to do with this show is certainly promote the things that Sean has to talk about
here and highlight them, give some depth to them that maybe we're not able to otherwise,
but we're always looking to make new officers out there.
We're always looking to keep this industry very healthy, and that information could help
somebody out there who may be on the fence, or have not even thought about this as a career,
and like, well, wait a minute.
That lines up with what I like, and that lines up with what I want to do, right?
Yeah.
Just a reminisce with him.
He forgot to mention.
He started as a part-time deputy reserve deputy for the Sheriff's Department.
That program goes back so many years and gives people that opportunity to get back to
get that first taste or experience into law enforcement, and I know when probably shortly
after high school, he's a Lincoln grad, so a thing to highlight that I always like to
do is when you have somebody that goes in, goes to college, as Doug mentioned, he knew
pretty quickly that this was the passion, the career that he wanted to be part of.
Not the experience with our reserve deputy program at the time, and then took a job with
the State Patrol and worked there a few years.
What's really admiral is that, okay, with the State Patrol, you can get put almost anywhere
in the state.
You can back that, and you can explain that.
It's a little bit more competitive than it is now, where you can't really choose where
you want to be.
You get put somewhere, and I don't recall exactly where you were working when you were
with the State Patrol, but you had the desire to come back, and he got hired in 1999.
I remember quite vividly, and we'll probably talk a little bit more in depth about that,
but I had started in 1997, and then we didn't hire anybody for a couple of years, and Doug
was first hired because back then at the Sheriff's Department, we really didn't have much
turnover at all, and really didn't, I think, before myself and John Hillover hired it
have been, I think, another five years that we had an opening, previous to that, and
I think that's what Scott Mahaka got hired.
It was different back then, but what is really something to highlight is the back then,
you had to get experience somewhere in law enforcement full-time to get to the departments
that you really wanted to, and with Doug being growing up here in Wisconsin, and having
desire to come back and raise a family, and be part of the community, that's huge.
I really personally appreciate that, and love to talk about it, that people that want to come
back to the community that they grew up and want to serve that community.
What did that mean for you, Doug?
Again, going back to the calling part of this, wherever you're able to serve, you're going to
be giving everything you've got, and honoring the badge, I know, but when you're able to do that
in your roots, in your own hometown and everything, what does that mean to you?
What does that mean to you, or does that mean to you?
So, getting into law enforcement, I knew right away that I wanted to work for the Sheriff's
Department.
My wife's father, my father-in-law, he worked for the Wood County Sheriff's Department,
so kind of following in his footsteps, it was quite an honor to get the phone call,
you know, offering opposition with the Sheriff's Department, as, you know,
right from the beginning, that this is where I wanted to be, you know,
getting to patrol the areas that I knew, serving the community that I loved, you know.
So, yeah, that's interesting.
What were some of your guys' early memories of those first days, those early days?
Well, and, you know, I think our career paths kind of meet each other.
I think our goals when we were on patrol were, you know, getting into, I think a big one for us,
was getting on a special response team, you know. And again, going back to that time frame,
there weren't many openings because the team was already established.
And, you know, that was a goal. You saw the people that had this scenario, had the leadership
positions, and, you know, we're being mentored by them, but it's like, you had a wait, you know,
it's like you couldn't get on the team, and we both did around the same time, you know, into,
I think you started as a sniper, sharp shooter, and I was on, I was a negotiator,
and then moved into an entry position, and then you kind of had a dual, dual position.
And what, you know, the first, you know, highlight I'll bring up is, you know, we got sent the
training over to Rice Lake for entry school, and so the training is basically other people from,
other SWAT teams from around the state. And it's just that, that basic entry level, you know,
training that you have to have, I think it was called basic SWAT training. And it's a week-long
school over in Rice Lake. We had a great time until, I don't know what day it was, but we were
going through some scenario training, and Doug Monop losing a tooth. And I'll never forget,
I think you were in front of me going through this stack, and then, you know, it was kind of like
somebody holding the bag, and then they pushed you back, and you need to have, you know, some
your equipment out, and what ever happened. Part of the equipment, I think, was your gun,
came back and hit you in the face, and then he turned to me and pointed, and I'm like,
you're missing a tooth. That's a new one. So, time out, we had to go through that, and then
the instructor came over, and I think, you know, took you to a local dentist, and you came back
pretty quickly, though, you were gone very long. I mean, he was able to complete the training.
I had to have the rest of that tooth removed. Oh, I was going to ask him throughout the rest of
this training, you know, working with a bunch of kind individuals, all of them with sense of humor.
Every chance that Sean got, he had to make me smile. You know, and then people started showing up
with white chicklets. Oh, here, see if this one'll fit. And then they started showing up with quarters.
Well, this is in case the tooth fairy can't find you, because you're away from home.
It's so cheap, I mean, it's just a quarter, really. It's a quarter, but that's great.
Don't know if we got many pictures of that. It was like before the cell phone, you know, time,
and everybody had a flip phone. So I think you locked out on that. I mean, to be honest,
I think you did. Yeah, actually kind of dodge wood right there.
You know, that's kind of, and then the other thing, too, that we did early on our career together,
we both had, you know, an interest, and it turned into a little bit of a passion for traffic
crash reconstruction. You know, I think with the background, with your, you know, with the state
patrol, and then one of our, these long since retired recurst, you know, one of our training
officers was our only department's traffic crash reconstructionist and kind of pushed us,
hey, this is, you know, something that you guys should be interested in. And little do we know
the training that that really brought to the table once we made that commitment to, to be a
traffic crash reconstructionist, I think it was extremely eye-opening for both of us on the
train that you have to go through. And it's not easy, you know, I remember we both probably had
different times that we'd struggle through different aspects of the train because it's so
specialized, you know, and we're really fortunate now to have a state patrol having the traffic
reconstruction unit because they're always helping not just our department, but everybody,
and doing these types of investigations. But we did those together and, you know,
you know, getting through the training and then getting deployed to, unfortunately, you know,
traffic fatalities, you know, getting, you know, those phone calls anytime during the night or
whenever. And the first one that we worked together was kind of County Highway F, where somebody
had rear-ended somebody else and basically pushed their vehicle off into the ditch area into a
field and the person was ejected and died. And then the offending driver took off, you know, left
the scene. Probably was intoxicated. An off-duty officer, you know, came upon the crash and told him
stay, but he took off. So we got called out to that and then we put the knowledge and training
to work and put a lot of time at Doug Gitta. He's a better drawer than I am. I kind of draw
things in cram. He's a little bit more precise and everything, but back then the computer programs
were starting to evolve. So a lot of the information our training was like long-hand, you know, doing,
you know, using calculators figuring out the formulas that would fit this investigation. And what we
found out is how precise the sciences, you know, you know, we worked his drawing, you know, as a
momentum kind of investigation or problem to work out. And, you know, the whole we came up with
the speed and the impact speed of what, you know, that crash was. I mean, that person was
rendered and how fast that vehicle was going. And I remember, you know, we're looking at you
like, wow, it's just working out that this person's probably going 80 plus miles an hour at the
impact or somewhere around there and just working that problem and figuring out, okay, this is
probably the one of the main contributing factors that lead to the death of somebody else.
And then seeing that through, you know, into the district attorney's office was a pretty big
experience for us. I took away from, you know, working together and really, you know, the head
scratcher of like, wow, this stuff does make sense with what we've learned. And, you know,
you can talk a little bit more about that because there's a few crashes that we are called out to
that, you know, they're hard to work, but you take the knowledge and the training, the investment
that the Sheriff's Department made in you and then you make that commitment. And, you know,
we've gotten called out several times during our career to, you know, work together to figure out,
you know, okay, what happened? And, you know, it's something that, again, that not only SRT
working, you know, together with, but even, you know, doing traffic crash reconstruction and those
investigations were something that experience, even though the tragedy part of it, but, you know,
we're doing our job for the right reason to make sure that somebody is held accountable if they
are, you know, it really depends on, on the crash because there's been some that were head scratchers,
why, you know, I think the one in over by Vesper were Amish guy we rented and we put a lot of time
in that and it was a drunk driver hit an Amish trailer and killed at least one person if I remember
right. And then, working through that, I'm like, okay, I wouldn't say a no-brainer because that's not
fair, but, you know, like, okay, we have somebody that's intoxicated, we're ending somebody,
it just seems like we know the facts here, this person's probably going to get prosecuted, but then
once we've worked with the state patrol as they're evolving, we found a well-awaited man, there's
some other factors here that we have to consider. And that was the lighting, the lighting on the trailer.
All right, now we're at dusk and almost dark and you have to look at what that other driver's
scene, you know, and that was an experience for us that initially I don't think, you know, we
agreed with, but then as we talked about it, it's like, okay, if that, I mean, that shows that
there's not just fault on, you know, you get tunnel vision, okay, we have a drunk driver. All right,
this just makes sense that this person can be held accountable for and they were at some level,
but, you know, you look at the cause of the crash and that's for that that came up, but there's
a few of those examples out there that, you know, that we had the opportunity to work together with
and then even evolve with the state patrol as well and continue to learn.
It's a part of the job that I'm very interested in and I think that we could spend a whole hour
on just this department and just talking about this work. Maybe we should sometime because I have
found it interesting. I'll admit, it's a little triggering for me. I was in a lot of accidents
as a kid and just talking about this stuff. I'm a little, I don't have a lot of a quarter for this
when it comes to bad driving or people not paying attention to driving, let alone drunk driving
and some of these other things. I have a lot of respect for the people that do this for lack of
a better way to put a puzzle work that goes on with this along with the emotional toll that this
must take and everything. I do want to ask it just a side question before we get into any other
highlights or anything like else of Doug's career. Something, and Joe could touch on this too
when it comes to acting. One of the first things I'll tell people about acting, you want to be good
at acting, work behind the scenes, you know, work behind the stage and understand a little bit of
what it's like to be out back there and doing some things. Run sound, be a prop person, something
like that. It'll make you that much better at it. Do you guys find where you are now in your careers?
These early jobs, these early things really helped you form into what you are now.
I'll start with you, Doug. Yeah, absolutely. I can recall working as a reserve deputy actually
doing a ride along with Rick Kirst and the early days of the crash recon program and asking a lot
of questions and just being amazed that he was able to take what appeared to be a small amount
of information and put things back together to determine how fast people were going, where the
vehicles were, what happened after the crash, to put the vehicles into whatever configuration that
we find them when we get on scene. So, yes, asking a lot of questions and just being there and watching
someone with the expertise do the job, it tends to form the pathways that you want to take.
Yeah, Sean. No, I agree. I can't say enough positive things about Rick Kirst. When we both
start our career here being, he's a trained officer, extremely smart. A lot smarter or not.
We fell that out. I was pretty upset with him initially when he talked me into doing the
traffic reconstruction and I got sent down to Northwestern University for a two week school
and he told me that a lot of the trains set up in phases. You start with the technical aspect of it
and then you go into more of the, I wouldn't say the expertise, but more, it comes down to like the
mass stuff, like the one that I'm talking about, vehicle dynamics and I think that was a week-long
school and so I get sent down and I remember being pretty upset with him pulling. I felt like I
was in college again pulling all nighters and trying to figure out this training and I came back
pretty mad at him and he told me, you'll go through that in no problem, it'll be a breeze and it
wasn't for me. Yeah, and I just said, you know, I could have gone to the other train to set you up
for this anyway, but it just shows that how smart Rick is and how he got it and then that
very similar to what Doug said, working with him and then seeing him investigate these crashes
like he did, did have an impact, I'm like, I'd like to do that. The unfortunate thing is what you're
dealing with the tragedies, but at least you're helping get your own answer and in a big picture,
you're holding something accountable that could have prevented a crash. Yeah, but yeah. Are there
parts of this particular part of the job that people would be surprised by or not common knowledge
as far as putting these scenes back together or trying to figure out what happened? Probably the
biggest thing that, you know, since we haven't been doing it for quite a while, you know, looking at
you know, the technology and how that has changed so fast, you know, for us, and this is kind of
a fortunate thing. We didn't get called out a lot, you know, and that's a good thing if you look at
it, but on the flip side of it, if you're not doing these investigations all the time, you got to
really rely on, you know, the train that you got and reverting back to it, and then with technology
changing, and that was happening. We were, you know, still doing this. It's a pretty big investment
that a law enforcement agency has to commit to, and we're seeing that, you know, with, you know,
we would map out scenes with a, you know, a roll tape, tape measure. We literally started with two tape,
yeah, and we'd have to eat the long ones, 300-foot stuff and do it kind of the long way. Now,
you know, the state patrol and some law enforcement agencies that are pretty busy with this kind of,
all these kind of investigations will make that investment with the total station where they're,
you know, popping down, you know, basically a computer and a camera and then mapping the whole
scene out, and it's quite an elaborate process that has gone through so technology has changed a lot,
throughout, and the cars have become safer. You know, if you look at, you know, one of the last
fatalities we had, and we'll talk about a little bit with a highway 1026, you know, looking at the
cars and, you know, seeing how a newer car that collides with an older car, both, you know,
having airbags, everything, but then the newer car having side-in-back airbags and just the safety
things that have changed with motor vehicles, which is our benefit. We have to consider those.
We're going to take a quick time out. We'll come back more with our Wood County Sheriff's Department.
We've got Sean and Doug with us, along with our friends with Wisconsin-Rapids Community Media,
right here at WFHR.
