Portage cop resigned after being charged for UTV rollover that broke rider’s pelvis

Det. Sgt. Brian Johnson retired from policing soon after he was accused of crashing a UTV that badly injured one of his passengers in 2025. His criminal case is still pending.

By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

A former detective sergeant for the Portage Police Department resigned from the force a day after he was arrested for crashing a UTV and injuring one of his three passengers in May 2025. A breath test at the time of his arrest had that officer, Brian Johnson, at more than double the legal limit, according to the criminal complaint.

Johnson had more than 20 years of law enforcement experience before he resigned May 12, 2025. His final hourly wage was about $42, according to the City of Portage. He has since chosen to leave law enforcement entirely, said Chris Van Wagner, his defense attorney.

“He has no plans to go back into police work,” Van Wagner said. “He’s done with that.”

Johnson still faces two felonies – injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle and injury by use of a vehicle with a prohibited alcohol concentration — and a misdemeanor for resisting or obstructing an officer.

“In reviewing the complaint, it looks like he was charged with obstructing because he told the dispatcher that there was no emergency and tried to stop law enforcement from responding while his passenger was severely injured,” Marquette County Assistant District Attorney Veronica Isherwood wrote in an email to The Badger Project.

As an officer in Portage, Johnson worked in Columbia County, and he was previously a deputy for the county. Because of this, the district attorney in neighboring Marquette County was assigned as the special prosecutor in the case, a common practice in the state to avoid conflicts of interest. Johnson’s next court date is scheduled for June 22.

“He is a man of honesty and integrity, and he feels terrible about this,” Van Wagner said about Johnson. “And he is doing everything he can, through me, to get the matter resolved expeditiously and on appropriate terms so that the injured party is made whole and so that nobody has any questions about his sincerity.”

The crash occurred in the Town of Springvale in Columbia County when Johnson was driving three others in a UTV to an asparagus field during a Mother’s Day gathering last year. He had seven drinks that afternoon, according to the report in the criminal complaint.

The report says that once he and his passengers “saw that the asparagus was not pickable, Johnson then turned sharply and accelerated, which then made the UTV roll over. During that time, (a female passenger) ejected from the unit, ultimately coming to rest on the passenger side with (the woman) trapped underneath.” 

Columbia County dispatchers were first made aware of the May 11 accident when they received a call from an automated voice saying “the owner of this watch was involved in a crash,” the report explains. Dispatchers tried to connect with someone on the line when a captain with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office recognized Johnson’s voice saying, “This is not an emergency,” “My phone was not in an accident,” and “I dropped my phone.”

Dispatchers continued to try to get Johnson’s location when he said, “So we’re in a field on P and Atkinson Road, we’re taking our friend, I, turned my friend’s 4-wheeler over.” 

Johnson did not say there was an emergency or ask for assistance at that time, according to the report. 

When asked, he gave his name and his badge number: “This is Portage 14.” The line went dead shortly after the dispatcher tried to confirm his phone number.

About 10 minutes after the automated call came in, a female caller asked the dispatch center if it had received a 911 call reporting an ATV crash, according to the report. The caller said her stepmother was involved and needed an ambulance.

“Um, an ATV accident?” the dispatcher asked. “I just had an ATV driver call me and say it was no emergency and no accident and he dropped his phone.”

Also about 10 minutes after the initial automated call, Johnson called the sheriff’s non-emergency line and identified himself again as Portage 14. He said there was an ATV rollover and asked for an ambulance for a woman whose hip was injured.

Months later, a Marquette County Sheriff’s Department detective contacted the injured woman, who told him she had three pelvic fractures, a three-inch laceration on her hip and a herniated back muscle. Her medical records, noted in the police report, confirmed she was brought to the ER as an “activated level 2 trauma” that day.

Johnson, pointing to the woman on the ground when a deputy arrived at the scene, said, “This was all me.” And he said, “I’m taking full responsibility for all of this,” the report reads.

A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warden at the scene said Johnson’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, according to the police report. Other deputies said you could smell the odor of intoxicants coming from him. He first refused a breath test because he said he was so upset after the crash that he had more to drink. He eventually agreed to a test, and the results were 0.173. The legal limit is 0.08.

The DNR warden, Derek Hansen, cuffed Johnson and took him to have his blood drawn. They said he was being investigated for “potential negligence or intoxicated use of a vehicle causing injury.”

Johnson has entered not guilty pleas, which Van Wagner said is only a procedural tool to enable negotiation and not a statement of truth or an indication that Johnson’s fighting the charges.

“He is torn up over this. He feels awful about what happened,” Van Wagner said. “He knows that it was a horrifying night. And he is doing everything he can to make amends and make it right.”

The Badger Project is an independent, reader-supported news nonprofit in Wisconsin.