PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — A small town in Eastern Kentucky continued the numbing task Wednesday of burying three police officers over three days.
The funeral for Ralph Frasure, a captain with the Prestonsburg Police Department, was held at the Mountain Arts Center. Services for Floyd County Deputy William Petry were at the center on Tuesday, and the service for Jacob Chaffins, an officer with the Prestonsburg department, is scheduled for Thursday.
The three were shot to death when a man accused of assaulting a woman ambushed them as they arrived to serve an emergency protective order on him. The deaths of three officers in one incident has been hard for the county of 37,000, said Judge-Executive Robbie Williams.
Petry and Frasure died the day of the shootout on June 30, and Chaffins died the next day.
”This is something we hope we never see again in our lifetime,” Williams said.
The three officers were well known.
”We all know each other,” Williams said. “Some wounds you never get over. You just have to learn to live with them. This may be one of them.”
Prestonsburg Mayor Les Stapleton and police Chief Randy Woods said Frasure was a dedicated police officer. He was an officer with the city of Martin and later with the sheriff’s office and the Prestonsburg department, and also served as a resource officer at Prestonsburg High School.
Frasure was a mentor to younger officers, and loved to play pranks such as putting pepper spray in another officer’s coffee.
“He loved, loved to have fun, and he wanted to know we all had smiles on our faces as well,” Woods said.
Woods offered to pay Frasure overtime for going to sporting events at the high school after hours, but Frasure declined, saying he just wanted to check on the kids.
“Ralph’s life made a difference,” he said.
The day the officers were ambushed, Frasure was advised not to get too close to the scene as the bullets continued to fly, but he went in anyway to help other officers, Woods said.
“Nothing was going to hold him back,” Woods said.
Hundreds of residents and police officers attended the funeral.
Several other people, including police officers, a constable and the county’s emergency manager, were wounded.
Lance Storz, 49, allegedly opened fire without warning on Petry and other police officers as soon as they got out of their cars outside his house in Allen, a small town near Prestonsburg.
A woman reported that Storz assaulted her, held her against her will and raped her. Police had taken her and her young daughter to safety before going to serve the domestic violence order against Storz.
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