{"id":196515,"date":"2026-03-18T16:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196515\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:10:07","slug":"port-st-lucie-police-sgt-levasseur-to-receive-purple-heart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196515\/","title":{"rendered":"Port St. Lucie Police Sgt. Levasseur to receive Purple Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A Port St. Lucie Police<\/a> sergeant will receive a Purple Heart at a ceremony in Port St. Lucie today.<\/p>\n

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

The gunman Frankie Riccio <\/a>died in a shootout with police.<\/p>\n

Riccio’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

See also: Teacher Feature: Okeechobee educator’s lessons leads to 21% higher learning gains in math<\/a><\/p>\n

Sgt. Levasseur underwent surgery to remove shrapnel from his eye.<\/p>\n

A Vietnam veteran who lives in Port St. Lucie, Thomas Matteo<\/a>, who received six Purple Hearts, is giving one of his Purple Hearts to Sgt. Levasseur.<\/p>\n

\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

\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

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…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40246,4070,91149,23130,171,173,172,91147,41489,91148],"class_list":["post-196515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-frankie-riccio","tag-mental-health","tag-police-ceremony","tag-police-shooting","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-purple-heart","tag-sgt-levasseur","tag-vietnam-veteran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196515","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=196515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}