Corrected: Slain local marshal featured on ‘Officer Down Memorial Podcast’

A new episode of the “Officer Down Memorial Podcast” tells the story of Bradley Rodgers, a Lake City marshal who was gunned down in Lake City on July 27, 1892.

“Marshal Bradley Rogers loved serving the community of Lake City, and this community loved him,” the episode summary reads. [Editor’s note: Some documents spell the marshal’s last name as “Rogers,” other sources, including his grave marker, spell it “Rodgers.” The Graphic is using the latter spelling for this story.] “He was known to be courteous and pleasant, and was always on the lookout for the city’s best interests. It was Tuesday morning, the day after the opera, the day after the Marshal removed a young man by the name of Daniel Bush, who was preaching to those entering the opera house declaring himself the second Christ. Bush’s manic episodes were known in the city, and he wasn’t known to be violent, until that Tuesday morning when he killed Marshal Rogers.”

The 19:37 episode sets the scene with some current events from the time in the world and in Lake City before going into detail about the events leading to the shooting, the shooting itself, and the aftermath.

Scott Rose researches, writes, produces, and hosts the podcast. He’s in his third term as Dodge County Sheriff. He had training and a career in broadcasting before embarking on a more-than-20-year law enforcement career, according to his biography on the website.

The show’s mission, according to the site, is “to ensure their sacrifice is never forgotten, and to show how our men and women who serve in law enforcement are true heroes every day they put on the badge.”

“My original goal was to tell the stories of all of our 40 fallen in Southeastern Minnesota as this is where I’ve served my career too. Bradley was one on the list to do so we could honor his service,” he said.

A few years ago he did an episode on another local fallen law enforcement officer, Lake City Police Officer Shawn Schneider.

“Research was done with public data records from the Police Department, records ancestry.com, newspapers.com, and historical society,” Rose said. “These are all produced so they are historically accurate for the community, agency, and survivor families.”

Lake City Police Sgt. Bill Weist was very helpful, according to Rose.

“He did a ton of research and I believe was the one who actually found Rodgers story and presented it to the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Association to add to our state fallen officer list. I’m on their board of directors.”

Weist said he first learned of Rodgers from an article during the City of Lake City’s 150th celebration in 2022.

“I think it was the Lake City Historical Society that had brought the department’s attention to it,” he said. “As I did some more research I was able to find more information in the form of old news articles, city council minutes from that era, civil war records, land and census records, and county death records as well.

“I was really hoping that we would be able to find a living relative, but I believe that Marshal Rodgers only had one child and that child died relatively early without any heirs. I may be wrong about that, but maybe this story’s exposure will cause the word to get out there and someone might recognize their ancestor, and come forward.

“I’m very appreciative of Sheriff Rose’s efforts to create this podcast and bring this story back to life. Rose also did the Shawn Schneider story a few years ago. It’s important that these stories get told, as they are an integral part of Lake City history.”

People can hear the episode at https://www.officerdownmemorialpodcast.com/bradley-rogers.

The Shawn Schneider episode can be found at https://www.officerdownmemorialpodcast.com/shawn-schneider.