17-05-2025
Memorial ceremony celebrates police, recalls those fallen in the line of duty
The Boone County community observed Peace Officer Memorial Day with a quiet ceremony Thursday.
Officers from the Boone County Sheriff's Office, Lebanon, area towns, the Indiana State Police, Department of Natural Resources, and others, came to meet the public and participate in a solemn ceremony.
K-9 officers, detectives, cyber sleuths and patrolmen came in everyday and dress uniforms to pay their respects.
Politicians and families came too, including wives, parents and children, to celebrate their work and dedication, and to remember the dangers they face daily and those who have fallen in the line of duty.
They gathered along Meridian Street outside of the Boone County Courthouse in Lebanon. Scouts led the Pledge of Allegiance after a multi-agency color guard lined up under a giant American flag the Lebanon Fire Department hung from the courthouse's limestone columns. Speakers remembered the five officers who have fallen in the line of duty in Boone County.
Peace Officer Memorial Day, May 15, is a national day on which to remember police who have died or been injured in the line of duty. Five officers have given their lives in service of Boone County.
Boone County officers who have died in the line of duty include:
Jacob Matthew Picket
Boone County Sheriff's Deputy 'Jake' Pickett, 34 at the time of his death, succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained March 2, 2018, while aiding the Lebanon Police Department in a manhunt.
Three men fled police when LPD went to a Lebanon home to serve a warrant. Pickett and his K-9 partner pursued one suspect who shot Pickett as he rounded a corner of an apartment building on foot.
Pickett was taken to Witham Health Services and then flow to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis where he was kept on life support until March 5 so his organs could be donated.
His assailant pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Michael Earl Greene
Indiana State Police Master Trooper Michael Earl Greene, 43 at the time of his death, was fatally shot Feb. 5, 1993, by one of two men he saw urinating along Interstate 65 just south of Boone County.
Both were wanted on outstanding warrants, and one suspect shot Greene as he handcuffed the other suspect. The shooter was sentenced to death but died in prison in 2007. The other was convicted of reckless homicide and has since been released from prison.
Richard Gerald Brown
Indiana State Police Trooper Richard G. Brown, 40 at the time of his death, was investigating an accident Sept. 27, 1967, when another vehicle struck and killed him on Interstate 74 between Jamestown and Lizton.
The second accident also killed two others and critically injured one person.
John Miller
Indiana State Police Sgt. John Miller, 35 at the time of his death, was killed Sept. 5, 1955, in a plane crash just south of Lebanon when the plane he was in, that was used to spot traffic violations from the sky, took a sharp turn and crashed in a field.
John Peper
Boone County Sheriff John Peper, 38 at the time of his death, had held office only five weeks when he suffered fatal injuries from a crash on a sleet-covered road Feb. 7, 1935.
He and a deputy were responding to another accident on U.S. 52 just north of Lebanon when the car they were in lost control and flipped.
Peper's wife was appointed as sheriff to serve the remainder of his term. She was Boone County's first female sheriff and only the third woman to serve as a sheriff in Indiana.
