Deputy Fired for Running Red Light & Killing Teen Reinstated with Back Pay

A former La Crosse County Sheriff’s deputy fired after she killed a Holmen teenager in a 2010 crash has won her job back.

In a ruling released Monday, an arbitrator ordered Trisha Stratman be returned to duty with back pay of about 20 months.

Stratman was responding to a call for help at a Holmen bar fight in the early morning of July 18, 2010, when she drove through a red light at more than 90 mph just as 16-year-old Brandon Jennings pulled into the intersection.

Jennings was thrown from his vehicle and died at the scene.

A jury acquitted Stratman on a charge of homicide by negligent operation, but she was fired in 2011 after an internal investigation found she violated department policy.