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Police identify lawyer killed in shootings (UPDATE)

By: Associated Press//March 23, 2017//

Police identify lawyer killed in shootings (UPDATE)

By: Associated Press//March 23, 2017//

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Sara Quirt Sann, a lawyer at a firm near Wausau, was among the victims of Wednesday’s shooting rampage.

Authorities say two bank employees and a lawyer were among the victims of a string of northern Wisconsin shootings that also killed a police officer.

The Department of Justice says Dianne Look, 67, and Karen Barclay, 62, died after being shot Wednesday at Marathon Savings Bank. Sara Quirt Sann, 43, a lawyer at a nearby law firm, also died.

Jason Weiland, 40, a detective and 15-year veteran of the Everest Metropolitan Police Department, was the officer killed.

Quirt Sann, a solo attorney in Schofield, had been a lawyer since 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile. Previously she worked as a manager for Wausau-based Quirt Family Dentistry from 2007 to 2012. Her LinkedIn profile also says she graduated from the Valparaiso University School of Law in 1999 and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a journalism degree in 1996. Court records show she served from time to time as a guardian ad litem in divorce and child support cases, watching out for the interests of the children in those proceedings.

Authorities said earlier that the violence in a small cluster of towns about 90 miles west of Green Bay started with a domestic dispute at Marathon Savings Bank. Police took a suspect into custody around 5 p.m. at an apartment building in Weston, but not before Weiland was fatally shot.

A person with knowledge of the investigation said Thursday that Weiland was shot as he approached an apartment complex in Weston, a small town about 90 miles west of Green Bay. The person requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the investigation.

Calls to the Everest department were referred to the state Department of Justice, where a spokesman did not immediately reply to texts or phone messages. Police planned to present a briefing at 4 p.m.

Weiland was among the officers who responded after shootings were reported at the bank and a law office in Weston and the nearby town of Rothschild.

The Everest police department’s website listed Weiland as a field training officer and member of a task force for internet crimes against children. His LinkedIn page said he had also worked as a narcotics detective for the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department, and as a police officer and corrections officer for Marathon City and Marathon County.

Meanwhile, a bouquet of flowers was left on the sidewalk outside the law firm where Quirt Sann had worked.

Yellow crime-scene tape also surrounded the firm’s two-story building, and a police officer was sitting in a parked SUV outside it the day after Wednesday’s shootings.

Authorities haven’t yet released details about what exactly happened. They said the violence in a cluster of towns near Wausau, about 90 miles west of Green Bay, began with a domestic situation at a bank where two people were shot before moving to the nearby law firm and then to an apartment complex.

Pat Palececk, who co-owns an electrical business near the law firm, says he’s unsettled that an attack like this could happen in his town.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has extended his condolences to the families of the people killed Wednesday.

In a statement Thursday, Walker also extended his sympathies to the Everest Metropolitan Police Department and to the communities where the Wednesday shootings happened, Rothschild, Schofield and Weston.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has also commended the law enforcement response to the shootings. He said Weiland was killed was protecting his community and will be forever remembered as a hero.

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