Menu
Brown honored by Sen. Young
2016 shooting incident earns officer Congressional Badge of Bravery
The Luke Brown Story, already worthy of a Hollywood script, got its own epilogue Thursday when the Greencastle City Police Officer received the Congressional Badge of Bravery Award.
In a ceremony Thursday afternoon at City Hall Indiana Sen. Todd Young presented Brown with just the third Congressional Badge of Bravery honor awarded in Indiana since Congress created the medal in 2008 to recognize law enforcement officers who have exhibited “extreme acts of heroism.”
“We recognize a true hero here today, and it’s important we do,” Sen. Young told some 50 friends, family members and fellow law enforcement officers of Brown gathered for the ceremony.
Young noted how the story of Brown’s heroism in a Dec. 10, 2016 incident has been recounted many times, stressing that “it’s a story that can’t be retold often enough.”
Putnam County readers will recall that Brown was a Cloverdale officer then, responding to a call for assistance in the case of a robbery suspect who had fled the Tractor Supply Co. (TSC) store in Greencastle and headed to his Mt. Meridian area home.
Brown arrived to see the man go into the house, went to the door to confront him and took a double-barrel shotgun blast to the chest from about one foot away for his trouble.
“Officer Brown returned fire,” Young said, picking up the story, “and then with no regard for his own safety, tended to the wounds of the suspect.”
Despite the presence of other officers, Brown was the only EMT among them. He dutifully rendered first aid to the suspect -- who had been struck in the torso by the police officer’s bullet -- until Operation Life paramedics arrived to tend to both of them.
“That’s not just an act of heroism but an act of humanity,” the senator praised, adding that Brown, then 27 years old, exhibited “not only compassion but decency to tend to someone who had just been shot, and then had the presence of mind to make a phone call from the ambulance to the love of his life, Amanda (then his fiancee).”
Brown survived the point-blank shotgun blast because of the bulletproof vest he was wearing. He was taken to a Terre Haute hospital but was released that night.
Obviously, though the ordeal is a once-in-a-lifetime story ready for prime time or the silver screen. Officer responds to call, gets shot, tends to the victim and the coup de grace, calls his girlfriend from the back of the ambulance.
“This is why sometimes real life is better than fiction,” Sen. Young said. “There are real-life heroes in our local communities, and this officer is one of those heroes, which is why Officer Brown is receiving this award today. Hopefully he can be an inspiration to others and remind each of us there are officers like him in local communities who are prepared to lay it all on the line for us.”
Young was extremely impressed by Brown’s attention to the wounds of the suspect, Jeffrey P. Hunter, now 51, Cloverdale, who received a 26-year prison sentence last May after pleading guilty to a Level 1 felony count of attempted murder.
“This was an extreme act of heroism, not just because of the fact he was hit by a bullet responding to a call while attempting to arrest somebody,” he said, “but more importantly he attended to that very individual and tried to save that individual’s life. In addition to bravery and heroism, it also showed a lot of humanity.”
Brown, who joined the Greencastle Police Department in July 2017, was deserving of the rare honor, Sen. Young assured. “Frankly he personifies all that our officers are prepared to do on a daily basis in risking their life and limb to keep our communities safe.”
Young asked Brown if he wished to speak during the ceremony, and the honoree was quick to decline.
“If I’ve earned a free pass,” he said with a smile, “I think I’m going to take it.”
However, Brown, who was nominated for the award by Indiana State Police Det. Jason Fajt and Greencastle Police Chief Tom Sutherlin, spoke to the Banner Graphic following the ceremony.
Brown called it “very humbling to be just the third officer in the state to receive this award since its inception.”
He noted that one of the Indiana recipients was an officer who, while off-duty in Minnesota, stopped an assailant in a shopping mall.
“Seeing the caliber of men and women who have received this honor and to be compared to them when their actions are far above mine is very humbling,” he modestly added.
The original Banner Graphic story on the incident noted that Brown escaped serious injury and possibly even death because of the Point Blank Alpha Elite ballistic vest he was wearing. Point Blank, based in Florida, subsequently honored Brown at the 2018 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, along with six other courageous police survivors. Each was awarded a ballistic panel plaque embedded with a round of the same caliber bullet with which they were struck.
He said that ceremony was similar to Thursday’s event, noting that he went to the Point Blank manufacturing plant where employees use “layers and layers of Kevlar” to make the vests. He noted that his visit was designed to help those employees understand their “sense of purpose.”
Brown also has his wife Amanda to thank for his survival. Reportedly her advice to Brown was, “Don’t wear just any vest, wear one that’s strong enough to actually save your life.”
Sen. Young: No comment on Mueller Report
With the Indiana Sen. Todd Young in Greencastle Thursday, the same day in which the Mueller Report was released, one question seemed quite logical.
The Hoosier lawmaker was asked for his reaction to the 448-page redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 American election.
Young smiled to media members and looked into the two TV cameras present for the Luke Brown Congressional Badge of Bravery ceremony at City Hall.
“So,” he said,”my reaction is that we’re here for an event to recognize a heroic officer, and I’m very happy to be here to recognize that officer.”
In other words, the Republican senator had no comment.