Deputy ‘Wally’ honored by hundreds at services
Fresno County sheriff’s deputy Joel Wahlenmaier was eulogized as “honest, brave, kind and true” in services Wednesday attended by hundreds, including law enforcement officers from as far away as Reno, Nev.
Fellow deputies told stories about the friend they called “Wally” — a man who would stalk elk in Montana, swipe your fries at lunch, and carry your little girl back up the snowy hill when she was sledding.
“There are few things as traumatic in law enforcement as losing one of our own,” Sheriff Margaret Mims said. “It shakes us to the core.”
Mims described her fallen deputy, killed in a shootout Feb. 25 with an arson suspect in rural Minkler, as “not just a great deputy sheriff but an all-around good, good man.”
She briefly described what happened that morning in Minkler. Wahlenmaier, 49, a detective, told his wife, Bev, that he would be helping serve a search warrant that day. He didn’t know that the suspect, Ricky Liles, 51, had other plans for him.
“He was with his team doing his job when shots were fired,” Mims said. “His partners valiantly and at great danger to themselves were able to remove him from that place of violence, but his injuries were too severe.”
Wahlenmaier died a short time later at Community Regional Medical Center. On Monday, Reedley police officer Javier Bejar also died from injuries received in the shootout. Services for Bejar are scheduled for next Monday.
Wednesday morning’s service at Peoples Church in northeast Fresno was attended by 2,000 to 3,000 people, the Sheriff’s Office said. At midafternoon, Wahlenmaier was buried at Clovis Cemetery.
Traffic was tied up as far away as Highway 41 south of Herndon Avenue before the service, and Herndon was closed at midday so that hundreds of squad cars could proceed to the burial site.
At the church, more than two dozen funeral wreaths formed a backdrop for four fellow deputies who spent 40 minutes remembering Wahlenmaier.
His flag-covered casket rested at the foot of the stage, framed by twin copies of his portrait on easels. Two deputies stood guard, a practice that Mims said began at the moment of his death six days earlier.
Outside, a sunny sky turned overcast. By early afternoon, a few raindrops had begun to fall.
Wahlenmaier was often a man of few words and sometimes a big talker, a physically fit man but a big eater, deputy Joe Smith said.
“I know you can’t tell by looking at his picture but he could put it away,” Smith said. “You never made the mistake of going to the restroom before your meal came. You’d come back and half your fries were gone and your pickle was missing.”
Basketball was a passion, deputy Kent Jones said, and Wahlenmaier did nothing halfway.
“He played pretty good defense — if you think tackling people and putting them in the wall as they were going for a layup is defense,” Jones recalled.
“Wally played the game like a hockey player high on Red Bull.”
He showed a different side to Smith’s 3-year-old daughter on a recent outing at Shaver Lake.
The little girl “didn’t like the snow,” Smith said. “She didn’t want to touch it or walk in it. So Wally would walk down there and pick her up and walk back up with her on the sled. And she wanted to ‘Do it again, Wally.’ “
The funeral procession crossed Willow Avenue on Herndon just after noon, and kept going for about an hour.
By Russell Clemings and Brad Branan / The Fresno Bee
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