MADISON — The man who killed two police officers in a roadside shootout in northwest Wisconsin last month was struggling with a divorce and didn’t like being “pushed around” by police, state investigators said in a report released Friday.
Glenn Douglas Perry, 50, of New Auburn, shot and killed Chetek Police Officer Emily Breidenbach and Cameron Police Officer Hunter Scheel during a traffic stop in Cameron on April 8. Perry was hit during an exchange of gunfire and later died of his wounds.
The state Department of Justice has investigated the incident and released nearly 1,000 pages of documents detailing its findings.
According to the report, Perry’s ex-wife told investigators she believed Perry was schizophrenic, carried guns in his vehicle and slept with a gun under his pillow. She said he spoke “to things that aren’t there” and threatened several people, including court officials involved in their divorce.
An ex-girlfriend told investigators she met Perry on a dating app about two years ago when he was working as a truck driver. She said his behavior “slowly started to go downhill” and that he was buying weapons every week and saying the country was going to war. At one point, he had five guns in the trunk of his vehicle, she said, according to the documents. Both women’s names were redacted.
Barron County Sheriff’s Deputy Jonathan Fick told investigators he had several encounters with Perry since joining the sheriff’s department in 2017, usually through traffic stops and calls involving Perry and his ex-wife. He described Perry’s divorce as “really bad” and said Perry had been accused of stalking and harassing her. He said Perry would sometimes “act crazy and try to fight law enforcement.”
Sheriff’s deputies told investigators a captain sent an email the morning of the incident saying Perry was wanted on a warrant for failure to pay child support. Officers should exercise caution when dealing with him because he was known to be armed and his mental status was declining, the email said.
Deputy Kari Storberg, who was one of the first to respond to the shooting, was on patrol that afternoon when she heard Breidenbach inform officers that she had found Perry’s vehicle and that she and Scheel planned to stop him. Storberg heard a dispatcher relay the warnings about Perry, but did not hear Breidenbach acknowledge the transmission.
One of Perry’s friends, whose name was also redacted, said Perry was upset with the county court system over child support and he mentioned “something in a text about killing someone.” The friend said Perry was upset that his ex-wife was telling people he was an abuser and a bad father.
Perry didn’t like being “harassed or pushed around” by police, the friend added. Perry told him if he was pulled over and didn’t agree, he would argue about it and open fire if he felt threatened, the friend said.
Cameron is a village of 1,700 people in northwestern Wisconsin. Chetek is a town of about 2,200 people about 9 miles southeast of Cameron.
