Michigan State Police honor trooper who died from COVID-19 complications

MSP Trooper dies in Florida after catching COVID-19

Michigan State Police are remembering trooper Herman Brown who lost a two-week fight after catching COVID-19 in Florida.

MONROE, Mich. (FOX 2) - The Michigan State Police Department is honoring one of their troopers who caught COVID-19 while on vacation in Florida just a few weeks ago.

Trooper Herman Brown, who worked in the Monroe Post, died on Monday from complications from the virus, which he caught two weeks ago while getting a well-deserved vacation.

"As soon as the phone rang at 5:30 in the morning I knew it’s Trooper Brown. It should not have ended this way. He deserved so much better than this," said longtime friend and partner Sgt. Sharon McDonald. "We couldn’t be there and that was the hardest part for us. We're problem solvers and we couldn’t solve his problem."

Sgt. McDonald and Trooper Brown have known each other for two years. She said he was a friend, partner, and just irreplaceable.

"He would randomly stop by your house with something he baked just to see your kids and check in on how you were doing," she said. "The kids called him uncle Herman because he’d show up to your kids sporting events just to support them."

His call sign to dispatchers was 1414 and his signature sign-in will be remembered by McDonald and others for years.

"He would check in saying he’s 'taking a mighty bite out of crime in Monroe County',"

For 28 years, he worked the Monroe Post on the road and McDonald says he was very careful.

"We've been dealing with COVID just like everybody else. We have been careful we will have no answers," she said.

McDonald is choosing to remember the big man with an even bigger laugh for his gentle demeanor and the things he loved, in no particular order: football, motorcycles, and MSP. She said he'll leave a lasting legacy for the way he lived every day of his life.

"He understood that we don’t see people on their best day and he would just remind them that no matter what today is, they’re still a good person," she said. "You would ask Trooper Brown how's it going today and he’d say 'everyday is a holiday'. Trooper Brown - he truly lived like every day was a holiday."

Services for the trooper will be private but colleagues say they're working on a way to remember him at the Monroe Post for years to come.