Brian Roebke photos
Wrightstown Police Officers Brett Vande Hey (above) and Heather Martin were the stars of last week’s Coffee with a Cop at The River Coffee & Cream in Wrightstown. With Chief Greg Deike unable to attend, Vande Hey and Martin answered questions of Wrightstown residents for about an hour.
By Brian Roebke
Editor
With Police Chief Greg Deike unable to attend, officers Heather Martin and Brett Vande Hey took over at last week’s Coffee with a Cop program, sponsored by the Wrightstown Police Department and The River Coffee & Cream.
The pair took questions from the 15 or so people enjoying spending time in the coffee shop.
The best line of the morning was after Vande Hey, a 2018 WHS graduate, was asked if he had to pull over a buddy.
“Almost every other stop is someone I know,” he quipped.
Since he was hired in February, he’s noticed things are much busier than he thought they would be in a small, quiet town.
Current issues the officers are seeing is people stealing catalytic converters from vehicles and license plates off vehicles.
“They’re using them because then they have your plates attached to whatever it is they’re going to do,” Martin said.
She said they recently had a sticky situation when Officer Gary DeWinter pulled over a car and three cars in a row pulled over at the same time. Apparently they were in a group and decided to stick together.
“They were all ticketed for drunk driving,” Martin said.
The Wisconsin State Patrol came to help after Wrightstown Police received a call about people walking around Park Street with open intoxicants, which ended up being an underage drinking party with between 50-75 guests. Most of them were not from Wrightstown.
“It got a lot bigger than it was supposed to be, like usual,” Martin said.
To cap it off, they found a stolen vehicle as part of that party.
Martin also revealed that while the department did not solve the case of the porta potty tipped over at Mueller Park on three separate occassions, they have now chained it so it cannot be tipped over.
She also reported there recently was a single-vehicle rollover at Plum Creek Trail and Highway ZZ with two kids inside, in the middle of the afternoon.
In other news, Brianna Schommer was hired as police clerk.