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1930–2010 · THE DEPARTMENT'S OWN ROLL, NAME BY NAME
The roll as the department keeps it: The Mishawaka Police Department publishes its dead on its own In Memoriam page, and the roll is positive: four officers and one police dog, each settled name by name against the Officer Down Memorial Page, Indiana's fallen-officer record, and the Tribune's reporting. One boundary is printed first because the regional record invites the error: Corporal Scott Polizzotto, killed in 2007, was a South Bend officer — he is South Bend's, in South Bend's roll, and he is not claimed here. Mishawaka's roll is its own four.
Patrolman Clarence Casper, 10 June 1930: The first name on the memorial is the first death: Patrolman Clarence Casper, on duty 5 May 1930 to 10 June 1930 — one month of service, in the city's own ceremony account — who was riding his motorcycle on duty when it struck a car turning left; he died at the hospital of multiple broken bones and internal injuries. A crash, not a killing: the roll keeps the distinction, and so does this entry.
Corporal Thomas Roberts and Patrolman Bryan Verkler, 13 December 2003: On 13 December 2003 Roberts and Verkler answered a shots-fired call at 125 East Battell Street. Roberts, who had served the department from 1989, was shot and killed and died at the scene. Verkler, in service from 2001 — two and a half years, in the Officer Down Memorial Page's reckoning — was shot and died in surgery; the accounts vary on the interval, the Officer Down Memorial Page giving two hours and the Tribune about three, and both are printed. A third officer shot the suspect once; the suspect subsequently died by suicide. Roberts and Verkler were, in the Tribune's words, "the first police officers in Mishawaka history to be murdered in the line of duty" — the distinction from Casper's crash death is the department's own history speaking precisely.
Corporal James Szuba and K-9 Ricky, 9 January 2010: On 9 January 2010 Corporal James Szuba, in service from 2002, more than seven and a half years, was assisting a pursuit on the city's east side when the fleeing suspect's vehicle struck his squad car, killing him and his K-9 partner, Ricky — the driver a drunken driver, in the Tribune's account. Ricky has his own smaller memorial stone beside the officers', in the department's words: "Not just a police officer, but a best friend."
The memorial and its keeping: The four names are etched, Casper's first, on the monument in the memorial circle in front of the former police station at 200 North Church Street. The Fraternal Order of Police and the city keep an annual Fallen Officer Memorial Ceremony: the ceremony of 15 May 2025, Peace Officers Memorial Day, was held in the City Hall Council Chambers at 100 Lincolnway West, with the images of the four men and the K-9 at the front of the room. Whether the Church Street monument itself moved with the department in 2022, or stands at the old station still, is not separately documented in the record reached — printed at that strength, and named here as the roll's one open physical question.
Sources:
- City of Mishawaka, Police Department, In Memoriam page — the department's own roll: Casper, Roberts, Verkler, Szuba, and K-9 Ricky, with their service spans and the circumstances as the department states them.
- Officer Down Memorial Page — the Mishawaka entries, including Verkler's death in surgery two hours after the 13 December 2003 shooting and the third officer's shot and the suspect's suicide.
- South Bend Tribune, December 2003 and December 2013, as carried by Officer.com; and via Police1, January 2010 — the Battell Street call; Roberts and Verkler the first Mishawaka officers murdered in the line of duty; Verkler's death about three hours after the shooting; the Szuba pursuit crash and the drunken driver.
- Indiana Law Enforcement Memorial, fallen-officer list — Casper carried under the Mishawaka Police Department.
- City of Mishawaka, May 2025 — the annual Fallen Officer Memorial Ceremony of 15 May 2025 at 100 Lincolnway West; Casper's service given as 5 May 1930 – 10 June 1930.