Neenah shooting victim 'had a love for his family'

NEENAH - The wife of Michael L. Funk, the man killed in Saturday’s hostage standoff at Eagle Nation Cycles in downtown Neenah, said her husband wasn’t as he appeared, with his long hair, tattoos and love of motorcycles.

“Everybody looked at him as a biker and a (motorcycle) club member and all this, but that wasn’t him,” Theresa Mason-Funk told Post-Crescent Media on Monday. “He had a love for his family.”

Mason-Funk said her husband, known as ML, belonged to the D.C. Eagles and Hell’s Lovers motorcycle clubs, but that he had distanced himself from the clubs in recent years.

She said they were looking forward to his retirement and planned to buy a motor home. Funk was 60.

“We were going to travel,” she said. “Things were finally looking up for us. Now I can’t do that.”

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Complete coverage of Eagle Nation Cycles standoff

Steve Erato, owner of Eagle Nation Cycles and a close friend of Funk, said Funk was inside the motorcycle shop Saturday morning when a gunman, identified Monday as Brian T. Flatoff, 45, entered the shop upset about the sale of a motorcycle to another man. Erato said the gunman held Funk and several others hostage.

Neenah police responded, and officers tried to enter the building but were met with gunfire and retreated. Shortly thereafter, police said a man with a gun exited the business, did not comply with officers' commands and was "shot at by one or more officers." He was taken to Theda Clark Medical Center and later died, police said.

Erato said he thinks police "shot the wrong guy” in that Funk was a hostage in the standoff. The Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting.

Funk’s daughter, Athea Callahan of Neenah, said she went to Theda Clark and was told that the man being treated was “the active shooter.” That didn’t make sense to her, given that the standoff was continuing back at Eagle Nation Cycles.

“Everybody at the hospital was told that he was the active shooter,” a distraught Callahan said.

Mason-Funk said she doesn’t know what happened when her husband encountered police. “There’s only one person who can really tell me, and he can’t tell me," she said. "That’s ML.” She said Neenah police knew Funk had a concealed carry permit.

Cole White, an attorney who represents Erato and Funk in an ongoing $50 million federal lawsuit against Neenah, Neenah police and Winnebago County, said Funk was fearful of police after a 2012 raid on Eagle Nation Cycles. One of the allegations in the lawsuit is that he was a victim of excessive police force.

“He was terrified of them," White said Sunday. "He was undergoing treatment because he had a hard time leaving his home for fear of encountering police following that raid.”

Funk was close to his daughter and two granddaughters, ages 9 and 6. Callahan said he attended their birthday parties and Christmas concerts and came over for family game and movie nights. They also went out to breakfast every Sunday.

Callahan said her family was devastated by the killing.

“My 6-year-old cried on the couch for four hours last night,” she said.

Funk and Erato were friends for 35 years. They were military veterans, with Funk having served in the Air Force. They rode motorcycles and liked to hang out and work at Eagle Nation Cycles, where they held annual community blood drives for 12 years.

“He might have not been directly on paper a financial owner, but I considered him a partner as far as everything else," Erato said. "He was there all of the time.”

Funk was not without troubles. In 2011, Funk was charged in Winnebago County Circuit Court with physical abuse of a child, as a party to a crime, in connection with the beating of a 17-year-old boy at the business, but the charge was dismissed, according to online court records.

Funk also was found guilty of driving with a suspended license in 2009 and of violating a disorderly conduct ordinance in 1999.

Callahan acknowledges that her father had his run-ins but said they were "nothing big." “He was never a bad guy in any way, shape or form, even when he wasn’t as angelic as he had been in his later life,” she said.

Ryan Moderson of Neenah knew Funk through Eagle Nation Cycles for the past 10 years. They rode motorcycles and worked on cars together.

"ML was like my father," Moderson said. "He took care of me and my family at our worst times. He was always next to me. I love the man so much."

Moderson said Funk had a huge heart and would give the shirt off his back to help someone. Funk was the first person he went to for advice.

“The community and all of his friends and family have suffered a great loss,” Moderson said.

Funeral arrangements for Funk have not been determined.

Duke Behnke: 920-993-7176, or dbehnke@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @DukeBehnke