Appleton Firefighter Mitchell Lundgaard Killed In Line Of Duty

The Appleton firefighter killed Wednesday night in the line of duty has been identified as Mitchell Lundgaard, a 14-year veteran of the Appleton Fire Department.

His identity was announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon in Appleton.

According to a media release posted Thursday on the Appleton Fire Department’s Facebook page, Appleton police and firefighters and Gold Cross Ambulance Services responded to a call at the Valley Transit Center in downtown Appleton to assist a 47-year-old male who was reportedly having a medical emergency on a bus that was soon arriving.

While first responders provided medical assistance to the male, believed to be from the Wausau area, the incident escalated into shots being fired, the Facebook post read.

“Firefighter Lundgaard was struck by gunfire along with a female bystander, and an Appleton Police Officer. The police officer was released from the hospital earlier today. The female is in stable condition. The 47-year-old male was transported to a local hospital where he died from his injuries,” the post read.

Prior to the press confernece, a long line of emergency vehicles escorted Lundgaard’s body from a medical examiner’s office in Milwaukee back to Appleton.

Police on motorcycles led the procession as it made its way north about 120 miles on Interstate 41. Firefighters with their truck lights flashing positioned themselves on interstate overpasses as the procession passed by on the way to an Appleton funeral home.

Josephine Schiedermayer was one of the hundreds of people who watched the procession in Appleton on College Avenue on Thursday.

“(Firefighters) do such wonders things and I have to come out and give them a little bit of my respect,” she said. “It breaks my heart.”

Funeral arrangements are being made.

The transit center tweeted Thursday morning it’s closed until further notice.

The Green Bay Police Department will be investigating the shooting with the assistance of several other state and local agencies, according to the Fire Department’s media release.

Editor’s note: Patty Murray contributed to this report.