{"id":196484,"date":"2026-03-18T15:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196484\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:43:07","slug":"port-st-lucie-police-sgt-levasseur-to-receive-purple-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196484\/","title":{"rendered":"Port St. Lucie Police Sgt. Levasseur to receive Purple Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/topic\/Port%20St.%20Lucie%20Police%20Department\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Port St. Lucie Police<\/a> sergeant will receive a Purple Heart at a ceremony in Port St. Lucie today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/topic\/Erik%20Levasseur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sgt. Erik Levasseur<\/a> was shot twice in the face on December 1 when he responded to a disturbance in the Town Park at the Tradition gated neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>The gunman <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/port-st-lucie-officer-shot-near-town-park-community-in-tradition-taken-hca-florida-lawnwood-hospital-florida-december-2-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Frankie Riccio <\/a>died in a shootout with police.<\/p>\n<p>Riccio&#8217;s mother said he had been using marijuana for days and shot at officers with a rifle when they responded to the home where Riccio lived with his mother.<\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/teacher-feature-okeechobee-educators-lessons-leads-to-21-higher-learning-gains-in-math\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Teacher Feature: Okeechobee educator&#8217;s lessons leads to 21% higher learning gains in math<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sgt. Levasseur underwent surgery to remove shrapnel from his eye.<\/p>\n<p>A Vietnam veteran who lives in Port St. Lucie,  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepurpleheart.com\/roll-of-honor\/profile\/default?rID=cdfa9cbe-2dc6-431c-9c1a-c4f838ffbfd0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thomas Matteo<\/a>, who received six Purple Hearts, is giving one of his Purple Hearts to Sgt. Levasseur.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt that the small token for this officer would be unique. Unique in the sense that maybe society, the people, would realize what a great sacrifice,\u201d said Matteo in an exclusive interview with CBS12 News in December 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, he was going to help a gentleman that was having allegedly mental issues, a breakdown. He was there to serve him, to help him, and beyond his control, he wound up getting shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sgt. Levasseur will receive the Purple Heart at the Port St. Lucie Police 4th Quarter Awards Ceremony at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the MidFlorida Event Center, 9221 SE Event Center Place, Port St. Lucie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A Port St. Lucie Police sergeant will receive a Purple Heart at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-196484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}