The Minnesota State Patrol honored two dispatchers who responded to last year’s mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis.
At the State Patrol’s annual awards ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 5, Katie Geissler and Erin Madison were lauded for fielding calls from civilians, law enforcement and worried families while coordinating the state’s response.
Geissler and Madison say they are haunted by that day and the decisions they had to make. Madison said the work is difficult but noble.
“People need good people to help save them, often from choices that they didn’t [make,]” she said. “I go to bed at night knowing that I saved a life. That is an incredible feeling that I wish for so many people.”
Geissler said many people deserve credit for the response at Annunciation.
“I find comfort in knowing that all the law enforcement agencies were able to execute their training in a professional and responsive manner,” Geissler said. “We train as hard as we can because when it counts, you’re able to deliver.”
Award recipients ranged from a Faribault police officer who carried someone from a burning vehicle to a bus driver who saved lives by dodging a head-on collision with a semi.
“It’s been a difficult year, to say the least,” Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said at Thursday’s ceremony. “It’s troopers, it’s dispatchers, it’s staff, it’s ordinary people who are stepping up in a critical moment with courage and calm and humanity to help others, often at great risk to themselves.”
