LAKE CITY — About 1,500 law enforcement officers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas and Canada are expected in Lake City on Saturday to honor one of their own who died in the line of duty.
Lake City police officer Shawn Schneider died Dec. 30 from a head wound suffered when he was shot while responding to a domestic dispute Dec. 19. His funeral and burial will be within a few miles of where he was shot.
Joe Modjeski, chief deputy with the Wabasha County Sheriff's Office, said about 2,000 people are expected at the funeral, probably making it the biggest in the city's history. When Minnesota State Patrol officer Ted Foss was killed in 2000 along Interstate 90 in Winona County, so many officers and others attended the funeral that it was held in the Winona State University Field House.
Officers on Saturday will be asked to park their cars in several places around Lake City and will be taken to the funeral at First Lutheran Church in Lake City. The Olmsted County Emergency Response Unit's mobile command center will be used to coordinate the event.
Because the church can't hold so many people, two large, heated tents will be set up outside the church and the service will be broadcast live there, he said.
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Officers will come from far away as a tribute to Schneider, Modjeski said.
"The deal is, it's support for the brotherhood of law enforcement," Modjeski said. "It touches us all when one of us goes down."
He said he had hoped he would go through his entire career and never have to experience an officer in the area being killed.
