Schroeder retires from Clintonville PD

LINTONVILLE – When the shift of Captain Dennis Schroeder ended June 4, it marked the end of a career and his time at the Clintonville Police Department that began in 1992.
The day marked Schroeder’s retirement from the department and career in law enforcement that almost didn’t happen.
Growing up in the city of Waupaca, Schroeder said he knew since he was a kid that he wanted to work in law enforcement. That was reenforced by one of his dad’s friends who was a city police officer.
“I remember he had a wood handle revolver and that uniform, so I always wanted to be a cop,” Schroeder said.
But Schroeder’s initial path after high school was not the pursuit of a career in law enforcement. He did have a part-time job as a dispatcher for the city of Waupaca, but his main employment was in a factory. Married, and with their first daughter on the way, Schroeder recalled one day he told his wife, “I don’t know if I want to do this (factory work) for the rest of my life.”

Schroeder said his wife kept reminding him that he had always wanted to become a police officer, and she encouraged him to attend school to pursue that dream. But he was unsure because he had to support his family.
“She just kept encouraging me to go, so I finally went and she kept pushing me, saying, ‘Don’t quit,’” Schroeder said.
Schroeder worked in a factory for around five years, but didn’t quit on his pursuit to become a police officer. While attending school to become a police officer, he continued to work, and his wife also worked. Once it was time to start applying for open law enforcement positions, Schroeder said his wife had only one request – that the city they would move to had a parochial school for their children to attend.
“You apply at a lot of different places when you first get out of school,” Schroeder said. “I went through the recruiting academy. You just applied wherever you could for what you were looking for. I kind of wanted to work for a city, I didn’t want to work for a county, so I was applying at cities and had a lot of interviews.”
When he applied for a job with the Clintonville Police Department, Schroeder said the department was going through some turmoil. He said he starting working for the department part-time, but was told he would be hired fulltime once an officer was let go.
While still working part-time for the Clintonville Police Department, Schroeder was taking a psychological test for another police department that he had applied for a job at. An administrator from the Clintonville Police Department was there for training and asked why he was there. Schroeder told him, and the administrator reminded him that there would be a fulltime job opening up at the Clintonville Police Department.
“You have to offer it to me fulltime,” Schroeder said he told the administrator. “Shortly after that it was, ‘Yeah, we have the fulltime job for you.’”
It turned out to be a blessing for Schroeder to by hired by the Clintonville Police Department, as he spent his entire career with the department. And Clintonville had a parochial school, which was his wife’s lone request.
“I liked it here,” Schroeder said. “We liked the school that our kids went to. We liked the church we attended. It was just good. I was involved in coaching with sports. There were a lot of things I was involved with. There was no reason for me to leave. It kept me here.”
With the Clintonville Police Department, Schroeder worked as a part-time and fulltime patrol officer before becoming the department’s first school resource officer (SRO).
“It’s kind of tough starting a position like that, but I had great support from the administration here,” Schroeder said. “Great support from the people in the school system, so we really had to work to make it successful. I think I did that for five years or so. Then they decided to create some sergeant positions.”
Schroeder applied and was hired for one of the sergeant positions, and gave up the SRO position. In the sergeant position, Schroeder’s shift was from 3-11 p.m., which wasn’t ideal because it would limit his time with his family.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh. I have kids and a wife. Do I want to move to a 3-11 shift?’” Schroeder said. “But we did it.”
After working as a sergeant for 10 years, Schroeder moved back to a patrol officer position, which covered the dayshift. He said he received some flack for that because it seemed like a move backwards.
“I’m going forward because I’m going to be able to spend more time with my kids and family,” Schroeder said. “They were more active, so I did that. I went back to a patrol officer position and worked that for a few years.”
In 2016, Schroeder became a captain with the police department, a position he has held since.
Schroeder said he thought about retiring last year, but people told him if he wasn’t ready to retire, he should not retire.
“And I think last year I wasn’t ready,” Schroeder said. “I wanted to do it, but then I thought I’m going to do it one more year. My wife is retired. There are things that we want to do. I think my body is getting older, and it gives somebody else the opportunity. I hope I prepared myself mentally and financially so I can do it.”
Even though he thought about retiring last, Schroeder said it was still a tough decision to retire now.
“If I was at a job that I hated and I didn’t like coming to work, it’d be easy to say, ‘I’m outta here,’” Schroeder said. “I love this job. I love these people I work with. I love what I’m doing. It’s a tough decision. But you know you have to do it sometime.”
He added, “Everyday it’s great to come in and work with these people. Same with the community. Sometime you have to arrest people and stuff. You maybe have some negative comments, but Clintonville is a small enough community, you know these people, so you have good communication with them.”
In retirement, Schroeder said he plans to take a break, but will eventually find a part-time job, but not in law enforcement.
“Not that it’s bad, but I want to completely get away from law enforcement. My wife and I are going to be taking a cruise. We have grandkids that live in Minnesota. We’re going to spend more time with them. We got a garden. We have animals to take care of. My wife has beautiful flower beds that need to be taken care of. We’ll stay busy. I guarantee it.”

Chief Freitag statement
Clintonville Police Chief Craig Freitag provided the following statement regarding Schroeder’s retirement, “I have been fortunate and blessed to have been able to work alongside Dennis (Schroeder) the last seven years. He’s just a kind man and one of the best investigators I’ve been able to work with. He was fantastic at investigating things, interviewing individuals. And he’s just a good person with a big heart. He never did it for the awards. There are so many things that he did in our community that was tied to his job, but he would do outside of work. …It’s special to walk out your last day safe. But a lot of knowledge is leaving.”