Not long ago I wrote an article on female members of the Milwaukee Police Department who retired and now had a second career in law enforcement. One of the ladies I mentioned in that piece was the current Chief of Police for Shorewood Heather Wurth. I only briefly mentioned each lady in that piece so I now want to talk about Chief Wurth more in detail. She was originally from Illinois but told me not to hold that against her. She applied for the police job while still in Illinois and came here in October 1992. Upon graduation from the academy, she was assigned to Avenues West, a part of District Three. This was part of the Marquette area and we had a sub station like location at 21st and Wells Street. It was a diverse area which had the Rave, which hosts a lot of concerts, the Rescue Mission also was down the street, plus they were practicing community oriented policing. This was a great place to work and I was assigned there part of my time at District Three also.
She was promoted to sergeant in 2001 and worked at IAD, the warrant, plus the vice squad until promotion to lieutenant in July 2009. Various locations as a lieutenant included District 4, District 7, and District 5 until promotion to Captain in 2015. Chief Wurth stated she was originally not happy about going to IAD but now it turns out to be a good fit for her in the end. There she looked at early intervention with officers, bench marks to judge them and ways to help. There she also did training, firearms and DAAT, which involves defensive training. While Captain she was assigned as Commander of the MIRT Team, Major Incident Response Team. These officers were highly trained and went out during incidents like the Sherman Park disturbances in 2016. She had to go out with the officers anytime they were called out to one of these scenes.
As you can see Chief Wurth had a very experienced background while with MPD and retired in July 2020 with 28 years of service. She was well respected among her peers. She got a job with a place called Direct Supply as the Safety and Security Manager. She later applied for the opening in Shorewood for chief and stated here in May 2022. She has been here around 10 months and I asked her about the differences in departments. Of course, the city is smaller and the department is smaller. She said younger officers have better tech skills these days and are ready helping the department. They also are better educated overall compared to when me and her came on the department. Their call volume is smaller here. Two Captains work first shift and the sergeants are the shift commanders compared to lieutenants at MPD. The building closes at 4pm and the sergeants are out on the street. All of the surrounding departments like Glendale, Whitefish Bay, River Hills, meet once a month to discuss issues in common. In addition, she meets with UWM and District 1 about common problems.