MILWAUKEE (AP) — A 17-year police veteran was shot and killed as he served a warrant on Milwaukee’s south side Wednesday, becoming the city’s third officer to be killed in the line of duty in eight months, authorities said.
Officer Matthew Rittner was a tenured member of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Tactical Enforcement Unit, which was conducting a search warrant on someone wanted for illegally selling firearms and drugs, Sgt. Sheronda Grant said in a news release Wednesday night. She said officers announced themselves as police and that the suspect fired several rounds.
The 35-year-old Rittner was struck by gunfire and taken to a hospital, where he died, Grant said.
She said a 26-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested. It wasn’t clear Wednesday night whether he has been charged.
“Officer Rittner is the third officer we have lost in the line of duty during a short eight-month period after going approximately 22 years without a line of duty death,” Grant said in the release.
Rittner, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, began his career as a police aide in 2001. He was part of a team that helped free hostages on two separate occasions in the same month in 2015.
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