Rosario Joseph Collura was a 39-year-old Milwaukee Police Department officer when he was fatally shot on March 19, 1985. A longtime member of the department with roughly 18 and a half years’ service, Collura grew up in and still lived in the city’s 5th District and had recently transferred from the night shift to the day shift for safety reasons. He was married and had three children.

At about 9:30 a.m. Collura and his partner, Officer Leonard R. Lesnieski, were patrolling near North 17th and West Center streets when they encountered a group of men near a grocery store in an area linked to narcotics activity. Reports say the officers stopped to question the men and began frisking some of them. During the search, Terrance B. Davis produced a handgun and shot Lesnieski and then Collura at close range. Lesnieski died at the scene; Collura was taken to a hospital but died about six hours later from uncontrollable internal bleeding.