Hundreds of police from across southeast Michigan and as far as Ohio and Canada gathered Friday in Auburn Hills to pay last respects to one of their own — killed in the line of duty.
Bradley Reckling, a nine-year veteran of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, was killed on Saturday night when the youths he was pursuing in a stolen SUV stopped the vehicle on Detroit’s east side, leaped out and shot him repeatedly at close range. Reckling was leading other officers in a lengthy chase of the youths that began earlier in the day, when a Chevrolet Equinox was stolen at Red Oaks Waterpark, the county’s big public facility in Madison Heights.
Three youths are in custody in the incident that stunned Michigan’s first responders, only to have them rocked by a second death on Thursday. A Hillsdale County deputy was killed in a shootout about 20 miles south of Jackson.
“Prayers to Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Office as we have lost another deputy there,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Thursday night, on the department’s Facebook site.