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THE MISHAWAKA FOP LODGE 91 FILE

FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE · LODGE 91 · MISHAWAKA, INDIANA

EIN 23-7585999 · 501(c)(8) fraternal lodge · IRS ruling November 1972 · File opened November 5, 2026

A group of uniformed officers standing in a row outside the Mishawaka Police Department, in a photograph posted by the Mishawaka Fop Lodge Facebook page. — **THE LODGE’S OWN PHOTO.** Officers standing outside the Mishawaka Police Department, in a photograph posted by Mishawaka FOP Lodge 91 on its own Facebook page.

What this file is. This file is built out of the lodge’s own federal tax returns, City of Mishawaka council minutes and ordinances, contemporaneous reporting in the South Bend Tribune and on WNDU, and the lodge’s own public Facebook page — photographed above, and exhibited in Section 7 — and nothing else. Every factual statement here is tied to the document or the named report it came from. This series publishes only what the paper says, and says plainly what the paper does not.

What this file does not claim. Read this first. Nothing in this file accuses the lodge or any officer of a crime. The lodge’s charitable-gaming operation ended years ago, and this file states that plainly: an ended operation is not a theft, and nothing in the returns says otherwise. Where a number in the lodge’s own filings is unexplained, it is printed as an open question the lodge can answer from its own records — because it is one. Where a fact could not be found, this file says NOT FOUND instead of guessing.

EXPLORE THIS FILE — TAP A TOPIC

Updates What the Lodge Is The Money The 2020 Question The Labor File 2014: Breathe Easy Village Green The Lodge's Own Account Records Demanded What This File Does Not Know The File in Dates

KEEP READING — THE PUBLIC COURT RECORDS

Every file in this series is built the same way: public records, exhibited in full, and nothing in them that the paper does not say. Finish one file, and the next is waiting — the loop does not close.

THE NEXT FILE · FILE NO. 1 OF THE PUBLIC COURT RECORDS

THE SHAWN APPS FILE

Thirteen appointments. Six terminations for cause. Four waiver denials — every one of them in the training academy’s own ledger, and the departments kept hiring him anyway. This is the file that started the series: one officer’s whole career, in the government’s own paper.

READ THE APPS FILE →

THE WHOLE SHELF — CHOOSE BY CATEGORY

POLICE OFFICERS
The Shawn Apps File — 13 appointments, 6 terminations for cause, 4 waiver denials — the academy’s own ledger, and the departments that kept hiring him.

POLICE OFFICERS
The Aaron Knepper File — the sergeant in his own department’s log, case 25-6153, and seventeen years of paper behind one line.

POLICE OFFICERS
The Ryan O’Neill File — The sergeant who shot Eric Logan — cleared for the shooting, a convicted felon for the month before it, and barred from public employment by his own plea.

POLICE OFFICERS
The Tim Corbett File — The homicide commander from the police-tapes fight — now a $90-an-hour school investigator with no end date on his contract.

ELECTED OFFICIALS
The Mike Schalk File — The council president, on tape — and the 1985 record underneath it.

ELECTED OFFICIALS
The Sharon McBride File — The DuComb Center director the county fired in 2024 — and the sworn deposition that put her District 3 seat in question.

PROSECUTORS
The Vicki Becker File — The 2003 discovery letter that left two internal-affairs files out of a murder case — and the exoneration that came 19 years later.

ATTORNEYS
The Pete Agostino File — Roseland’s town attorney since at least 2000 — no contract, no appointment vote, and no pay figure anywhere in public.

SPECIAL FILE
The Nikki Lopez File — Found dead at 32, labeled a natural death by 5:36 AM — and a prosecutor who says no agency ever called her.

ORGANIZATIONS
The Mishawaka FOP Lodge 91 File — YOU ARE HERE — A police lodge’s decade of deficits in its own tax returns, the staffing deal it co-wrote, and its official Facebook account in the reaction list of File No. 1.

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UPDATES TO THIS FILE

This is a living file. New verified records are added at this address, dated, as they arrive.

November 5, 2026 — this file opened. The lodge’s decade of Form 990 returns, the labor record, the 2014 affair, the Village Green question, and the exhibit in Section 7 — the lodge’s official Facebook account in the laughing-reaction list of File No. 1 — are entered as the file’s founding record. Three records requests filed October 11, 2026 are listed in Section 8; their answers will be added here as they arrive.

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1 · WHAT THE LODGE IS

The organization. Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 91, Mishawaka — the local lodge of the national police fraternity, and the recognized bargaining agent for Mishawaka police officers: the City of Mishawaka negotiates its police contract with this lodge. Its federal tax identity is EIN 23-7585999, a 501(c)(8) fraternal beneficiary society holding its exemption under an IRS ruling of November 1972, as a subordinate under the Fraternal Order of Police group exemption.

The hall. The lodge sits at 1825 E. 12th Street, Mishawaka, Indiana 46544 (mailing address: PO Box 292, Mishawaka, IN 46546), telephone 574-258-9155. The building is a 15,000-square-foot hall that the lodge markets to the public as a wedding and event venue — directory listings bill it as the largest reception availability in Mishawaka. Its website, mishawakafop.com, solicits donations under a “Donate Today” banner and describes the lodge’s mission as “bridging the gap between our officers and the citizens and businesses of Mishawaka.” The lodge also speaks to the public through a Facebook page and a Twitter account, @MishawakaFOP91. What the lodge says and does through those public accounts is part of its public record — see Section 7.

The page’s manager. The lodge’s Facebook page states who runs it, in its own bio line, printed here verbatim: “Comment and Posts are current managed by Brother Rich Freeman.” (The lodge’s Facebook page, as screenshotted November 5, 2026; the original screenshot is preserved in this file’s research pack.) “Brother Rich Freeman” is the lodge’s president, Richard “Rich” Freeman, in the officer table below.

The officers. Per the officer rosters carried in the lodge’s Form 990 filings, and confirmed for its president in the Mishawaka Common Council minutes of January 5, 2026:

Office	Holder	On the record
President	Richard “Rich” Freeman	An active Mishawaka police officer — dayshift/2nd rotation, instructor, field training officer and SWAT member — named MPD Officer of the 4th Quarter 2024. Confirmed as Lodge 91 president in the council minutes of January 5, 2026, where he spoke for the lodge’s contract.
Vice President	Andrew Bauer	Carried as vice president in the lodge’s Form 990-derived officer roster.
Treasurer	Matthew Porter	Carried as treasurer in the lodge’s Form 990-derived officer roster.
President (2014 era)	Pasquale Rulli	In office during the December 2014 “Breathe Easy” affair, Section 5, where he attended the Notre Dame meeting on the lodge’s behalf.

The lodge’s president is an active Mishawaka police officer. The council minutes of January 5, 2026 record him speaking for the lodge’s contract with the city that employs him.

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2 · THE MONEY — THE LODGE’S OWN TAX RETURNS

Every figure in this section comes from the lodge’s own Form 990 filings, EIN 23-7585999, as indexed by the IRS and cross-checked across the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, orgcouncil.com and 501c3lookup.org. They are printed here as filed.

Tax year	Revenue	Expenses	Net	Year-end assets
2013	$476,467	$456,469	+$19,998	$479,879
2014	$354,127	$427,367	−$73,240	$453,968
2015	$310,022	$370,715	−$60,693	$417,096
2016	$339,398	$362,205	−$22,807	$395,654
2017	$298,105	$378,354	−$80,249	$339,595
2018	$179,135	$267,138	−$88,003	$304,015
2019	$120,767	$151,947	−$31,180	$268,527
2020	$25,360	$59,334	−$33,974	$590,752
2021	$21,482	$40,164	−$18,682	$570,744
2022	$46,888	$57,422	−$10,534	$522,779
2023	$20,981	$43,941	−$22,960	$483,579

A decade of deficits. The lodge spent more than it took in for ten of the eleven years from 2013 through 2023 — only 2013 closed with a surplus. Over the same span, revenue fell from $476,467 to $20,981, a decline of roughly 95 percent. Cumulative operating losses for 2014 through 2023 run to about $442,000.

The gaming money — and the year it stopped

The engine under the old revenue was charitable gaming. The lodge’s 2018 Form 990 reports gaming that grossed $1,014,241 and netted $76,149 after $938,092 in direct expenses. The filings for 2012 through 2017 show gaming grossing between $1 million and $4 million a year. From the 2019 return onward, gaming does not appear in the filings at all — and the lodge’s unrelated-business-income indicator flips from “Y” (2012–2018) to “N” (2019 onward), tracking the same change. The gaming operation ended. Nothing in any return indicates that gaming money went anywhere it should not have gone, and this file makes no such claim.

After gaming ended, the remaining revenue lines were smaller. Hall rentals netted roughly $56,000–$59,000 a year in 2018 and 2019. Contributions were $19,523 in 2023. The 2023 return also reports fundraising at a loss: $11,413 spent on fundraising to raise $5,790 gross.

The debt, and what the officers are paid

The lodge’s balance sheet has been shrinking its one clear obligation: the secured mortgage balance on the hall fell from about $156,000 in 2018 to about $87,000 in 2023 (total liabilities, per the returns: $155,863 in 2018; $87,053 in 2023). As for pay: the returns show officer compensation at essentially $0 across the decade, with a $1,200 figure appearing for two officers in the 2022 summary data. The balance sheet across the same years shows reserves drawn down as revenue fell.

A number that is not true. Nonprofit-aggregator websites list a multi-million-dollar “total income” figure for Lodge 91. That figure is wrong — a mislabeled column in an aggregator’s table, repeated from site to site. The lodge’s real peak revenue, per its own Form 990, is $476,467 (2013). Anyone quoting a multi-million-dollar income figure for this lodge, for it or against it, is quoting an error. This file does not.

The lodge has also filed a Form 990 for fiscal 2024 and a Form 990-EZ for fiscal 2025, per the Cause IQ index of IRS filings. Those figures join this file when the returns themselves are in hand.

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3 · THE 2020 QUESTION

One line in the lodge’s own balance sheet does not explain itself, and this file prints it as what it is: a question.

In 2019, the lodge’s Form 990 reported year-end assets of $268,527. In 2020 — a year the lodge took in $25,360, spent $59,334, and ran a $33,974 deficit, while its liabilities fell by about $25,536 — the return reported year-end assets of $590,752. The assets rose $322,225 in a deficit year. Arithmetically, the 2020 return requires roughly $381,735 in “other changes in net assets” (Form 990, Part XI, line 9) beyond its operating result and its debt movement.

There are innocent instruments that produce a line like that: a property revaluation, a restatement, relief funds, a filing correction. Any one of them could be the whole story. The explanation, if one was filed, sits in the narrative schedule to the lodge’s own 2020 return — its Schedule O — which has not been produced in the public indexes searched. So the question stands exactly where the lodge’s own numbers leave it: $322,225 appeared on the lodge’s balance sheet in 2020, and the lodge’s public filings do not say from where. The lodge can close this question with one page of its own paperwork. Until that page is public, the question stays in this file, dated and open.

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4 · THE LABOR FILE — THE DEAL THAT CUT FIFTEEN POSITIONS

Late 2023. The City of Mishawaka, the police department’s leadership, and Lodge 91 jointly designed a move to 12-hour shifts for Mishawaka officers. Lodge President Freeman brought the proposal to the administration, and Mayor Dave Wood publicly commended “the FOP leaders” for the collaboration. Inside the same deal, the city cut the department’s budgeted officer positions from 114 to 99 — fifteen positions erased from the budget — and called the model “revenue neutral,” because the fifteen-position difference simply went unfunded. (City of Mishawaka published accounts of the shift approval and the Mayor’s November communicator letter.)

The documented facts of the deal are these: the lodge co-designed a staffing plan with the city; the plan reduced the department’s budgeted positions by fifteen; and the city presented the plan as revenue neutral because the fifteen positions went unfunded. Nothing in that arrangement is illegal, and this file does not call it anything else. Whether the cut reduced actual police coverage is not answered by the documents in hand. The staffing records that could answer it are requested in Section 8.

October 2025. The Mishawaka Common Council held executive sessions on October 9, October 13, and October 24, 2025, noticed as sessions on “FOP Strategy Related to Collective Bargaining” under IC 5-14-1.5-6.1(b)(2)(A) — the city planning, behind closed doors, how to negotiate with the lodge.

January 5, 2026. The Council passed Ordinance 2026-02, approving a one-year collective bargaining agreement with Lodge 91. The 2026 agreement added specialty pay — including drone-operator pay — along with light-duty language, detective-bureau on-call overtime rules, training rules, and a personal-day buyout. President Freeman spoke in favor of the agreement at the meeting. (Mishawaka Common Council minutes, January 5, 2026.) The agreement runs one year, so the bargaining — and the executive sessions that precede it — recur annually.

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5 · 2014 — “BREATHE EASY”

December 2014. The Notre Dame women’s basketball team wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts before a game, invoking the death of Eric Garner. Mishawaka police officer Jason Barthel began selling shirts reading “Breathe Easy” and “Don’t Break the Law,” printed with a police badge over a thin blue line, at South Bend Uniform — the uniform store Barthel owned. (Associated Press, December 2014.)

Three members of the South Bend Common Council — Oliver Davis, Henry Davis Jr., and Valerie Schey — publicly called on Barthel to stop selling the shirts, calling the message divisive. The South Bend Tribune put a number under the story: the City of South Bend was a frequent customer of Barthel’s store, with more than $64,700 in city receipts to South Bend Uniform since January 2013 — a neighboring city’s uniform money flowing to a store owned by an active Mishawaka officer.

The lodge’s part in the affair is its president’s. Lodge 91 President Pasquale Rulli attended the meeting between the Notre Dame team and local police-union representatives, and afterward told the media that all parties had agreed to avoid speaking further about the matter in public.

Officer Barthel today — the whole of the documented record. On December 16, 2025, WNDU reported that Officer Barthel had been placed on paid administrative leave amid an internal investigation. The department gave no reason. That report is everything the public record currently says about his status, and it is all this file prints about it. Anything beyond that report is not in the record, and what is not in the record is not in this file.

The procurement thread underneath the 2014 story was never fully pulled: how much public money, in total, has flowed to an active officer’s private store, and under what purchasing rules. The City of South Bend’s own purchase records for 2013–2016 are demanded in Section 8.

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6 · VILLAGE GREEN — THE SCHOCK QUESTION

January 31, 2022. At the Village Green Mobile Home Park in Mishawaka, Officer Garrett Schock fatally shot Michael Haas. In February 2022, the St. Joseph County Prosecutor ruled the shooting a justified homicide. That ruling is printed here exactly as it stands: the shooting was ruled justified, the criminal matter is closed, and nothing in this file reopens it. The South Bend Tribune later obtained the department’s video of the shooting through a public-records request (March 2022).

What remains open is a question about the lodge, not about the shooting. Whether Lodge 91 provided legal-defense fund support, financial disbursements, or other material support to Officer Schock is, on the record searched, unknown. No public statement by the lodge on the shooting was located in this research. The question was put in writing to the Mishawaka Police Department’s Chief’s Office on October 11, 2026 (Section 8). When the answer arrives, it will be added to this file at this address.

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7 · THE LODGE’S OWN ACCOUNT — EXHIBIT

On November 3, 2026, this Page published the launch post for File No. 1 of this series, The Shawn Apps File (Page post 1745155723851655). Facebook maintains a list of the accounts that reacted to a post, sorted by reaction type. That list was recorded on November 5, 2026. Under the laughing reaction — the “Haha” tab — the list contains 49 accounts. One of the 49 is listed verbatim as “Mishawaka Fop Lodge,” the lodge’s official Facebook account, with the laughing-reaction badge on its avatar. The exhibit is printed in full: the still below, and the complete recording it was taken from.

EXHIBIT. Still frame from a screen recording of the reaction list on the November 3, 2026 launch post for File No. 1, The Shawn Apps File (A South Bend Crusader, Page post 1745155723851655). The laughing-reaction tab is selected; it holds 49 accounts. The entry “Mishawaka Fop Lodge” appears in the list with the laughing-reaction badge on its avatar. Source: screen recording of the post’s reaction list, recorded November 5, 2026, at approximately 6:19 AM, and supplied to A South Bend Crusader the same day. At the time of the recording, the post carried approximately 11,800 reactions, 1,500 comments, and 2,400 shares. The record shows the reaction. No document states a reason for it, and none is claimed here.

EXHIBIT — THE RECORDING. The complete screen recording from which the still above was taken: the reaction list of the November 3, 2026 launch post for File No. 1, The Shawn Apps File (A South Bend Crusader, Page post 1745155723851655), recorded November 5, 2026, at approximately 6:19 AM, and supplied to A South Bend Crusader the same day. The recording runs 76 seconds and shows the list in full, as it stood at the time of recording.

The exhibit is printed with the following limits, which are part of the record. The entry documents a reaction on the post by the lodge’s official account. It was not a comment. The record does not identify which individual was operating the account, and this file does not attribute the reaction to any named individual. The record does not state a reason for the reaction, and this file claims none — for the lodge’s account, or for any other account in the list.

Beside the exhibit, one more documented fact, stated in Section 1: the lodge’s Facebook page declares in its own bio, “Comment and Posts are current managed by Brother Rich Freeman” — the lodge’s president, Richard “Rich” Freeman. The two facts stand side by side because both are in the record: that is what the page declares about who manages its comments and posts, and the exhibit above is what the lodge’s account did. Neither fact, separately or together, identifies which individual was operating the account when the reaction was made.

THE LODGE’S OWN PAGE. The lodge’s Facebook page, screenshotted November 5, 2026. Its bio reads: “Comment and Posts are current managed by Brother Rich Freeman.” The “Followed by” viewer line was whited out before publication; nothing else was altered.

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8 · RECORDS DEMANDED — FILED OCTOBER 11, 2026

Three records requests concerning the lodge were filed on October 11, 2026 — with the City of Mishawaka, the City of South Bend, and the Mishawaka Police Department. Each is listed here by its scope.

1. City of Mishawaka — APRA request to Clerk Deborah S. Block, October 11, 2026. The complete collective bargaining agreements between the City of Mishawaka and FOP Lodge 91 covering calendar years 2023 and 2026, including the agreement approved by Ordinance 2026-02 and any related memoranda or side letters; the certifications and any minutes, memoranda, or records memorializing the Common Council executive sessions of October 9, 13, and 24, 2025 on FOP collective-bargaining strategy; and records of any payments by the City of Mishawaka to FOP Lodge 91 (EIN 23-7585999), and any contracts between the City and businesses owned by officers of the lodge, from January 1, 2020 to the present.

2. City of South Bend — APRA request to the Legal Department, October 11, 2026. All purchase orders, invoices, payment vouchers, and payment records reflecting purchases by the City of South Bend from South Bend Uniform, the store owned by Officer Jason Barthel, for January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2016 — the records underneath the Tribune’s $64,700 figure in Section 5.

3. Mishawaka Police Department — inquiry to the Chief’s Office, October 11, 2026. Whether FOP Lodge 91 provided legal-defense fund support, financial disbursements, or other material support to Officer Garrett Schock in connection with the January 31, 2022 Village Green shooting, to the extent reflected in department records; and whether the department or the lodge issued public statements regarding the shooting, with copies if they exist.

Each answer, when it arrives, is added to this file at this address, dated, in the Updates section at the top of this page.

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9 · WHAT THIS FILE DOES NOT KNOW

The limits of this file, stated plainly.

The 2020 Schedule O. The $322,225 asset increase on the lodge’s 2020 return (Section 3) is unexplained on the face of the public filings. The narrative schedule that would explain it has not been produced in the indexes searched. OPEN.

The Schock defense question. Whether the lodge funded or otherwise supported Officer Schock’s defense after the Village Green shooting is unknown; the question was asked in writing on October 11, 2026. OPEN.

The PAC question. No Lodge 91 political action committee was located in the Indiana campaign-finance records searched. The state’s official portal blocked automated checks, so that negative result is provisional, and the search continues. The Indiana State FOP’s own PAC and its telemarketing history belong to the state lodge, a separate entity — they are not Lodge 91’s record, and nothing in this file attributes them to Lodge 91.

The donation question. The lodge solicits donations on its own website. The summary-level filing data does not break out how donation money is spent — member benefit, charitable programs, or the hall. That breakdown sits in the full returns. OPEN.

The full rosters. Officer names and the financial table in this file rest on summary-level Form 990 data, cross-checked across three indexes, and on council minutes. The full filed returns — including the Part VII rosters — were not retrievable for every year in the October 2026 pulls, and the fiscal 2024 and 2025 returns have not yet been read. Corrections from the paper, when it arrives, will be entered as dated updates.

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THE FILE IN DATES

November 1972 — IRS ruling under which Lodge 91 holds its 501(c)(8) exemption as an FOP subordinate.

2012–2018 — The charitable-gaming era: the lodge’s filings show gaming grossing $1 million to $4 million a year.

2013 — Peak revenue: $476,467. The only surplus year of the decade that follows.

December 2014 — The “Breathe Easy” shirts; the Tribune’s $64,700 figure for city receipts to an officer’s store; President Rulli and the agreement to stop talking about it.

2019 — The 2018 return is the last filing that reports gaming; from 2019 onward, gaming does not appear in the lodge’s filings.

2020 — Assets jump $322,225 in a deficit year. Unexplained on the face of the filings.

January 31, 2022 — Officer Garrett Schock fatally shoots Michael Haas at Village Green. February 2022 — the prosecutor rules the shooting justified; the criminal matter closes.

Late 2023 — The lodge co-designs the 12-hour-shift plan; budgeted MPD positions fall from 114 to 99, sold as “revenue neutral.”

October 2025 — The Common Council holds executive sessions on FOP bargaining strategy.

January 5, 2026 — Ordinance 2026-02: the one-year CBA passes, with added specialty pay; President Freeman speaks for it.

October 11, 2026 — Three records requests filed: Mishawaka, South Bend, and the MPD Chief’s Office.

November 3, 2026 — File No. 1, the Shawn Apps dossier, is published. The lodge’s official Facebook account appears in the launch post’s laughing-reaction list (Exhibit, Section 7).

November 5, 2026 — The reaction list is recorded; the exhibit enters this file, and this file opens.