One man had spent years dreaming of joining this particular force. Another man signed on when he moved hundreds of miles to follow his family in a time of need.

In a Floyd County Sheriff’s Department that hadn’t lost an officer for three generations, colleagues of the slain Frank Denzinger and the seriously injured Joel White were still reeling on Tuesday, the day after a teenager shot both with a sniper rifle.

Sheriff Darrell Mills and Prosecutor Keith Henderson praised Denzinger, 32, of Lanesville and White, 27, of New Albany at an afternoon news conference.

“They were great officers. I commended them for their service quite often,” Mills said.

Henderson called White “an excellent deputy” and said of Denzinger: “His reputation was one of the highest in my office.”

Mills implored everyone listening to pray for the officers’ families and for White’s recovery.

“That’s our family,” Mills said, referring to the department.

Auxiliary Officer Eric Stewart recalled utter disbelief after he heard his friend had been shot. They had worked together at the Floyd County Jail.

“No way that could happen to Frank. There was no way that that was Frank. It just kind of ripped you open on the inside [to hear] he lost his life doing something that he loved,” Stewart said. “I was trying to gather my stuff up to help the city out [covering county shifts]; I’m gathering stuff up and I’m forgetting things, and all I can think is, ‘Is he going to make it?’ The only report I had heard was he was down.”

Denzinger was married to the former Tara Quinkert, a onetime county dispatcher, and had a daughter, Avery, 2. Tara is scheduled to address the media at 2 today.

Denzinger, a Floyd Central High School graduate, earned a criminal justice degree from Vincennes College and Eastern Kentucky University and worked in the jail before joining the Sheriff’s Department four years ago.

“That was his dream,” said Jason Thornbury, another former colleague from the corrections department. “He wasn’t after fame or glory or anything like that.”

Chris McDowell used to work for Denzinger’s father, an orthodontist with an office along State Street in New Albany.

“When he got his [police] car, he was so happy,” McDowell recalled.

Jeff Firkins, Denzinger’s fellow sheriff’s deputy, said he hoped his best friend would be remembered as more than his job and his tragic death.

“The whole community is going to know Frank as a police officer, but unfortunately they don’t know Frank,” Firkins said. “He was just the greatest guy. ... He just had a heart of gold.”

Thornbury remembered their conversations on the job.

“Most of the time, we’re cracking jokes and talking about the people we booked in, or the typical jail stories,” Thornbury said. “He always had a smile on his face and had a hell of a laugh.”

Friends mentioned Denzinger’s interests in the outdoors, target-shooting and running five-kilometer races.

White is married with two young children. Two years ago, he was an officer in a Missouri local police department when he and his wife decided to move to Louisville, where her mother had become ill, Lt. Frank Loop said.

White joined Floyd County’s force in January 2006.

“Officer White was showing progress toward becoming an elite officer,” Mills said Tuesday.

Though Mills used the past tense, he tried to be optimistic when asked about White’s future with the department. White’s condition was upgraded from critical to serious at University of Louisville Hospital, Mills told people at the news conference, but he is not expected to be released soon.

“It’s way too early to determine whether he can return to duty,” Mills said. “We’ll have a spot here for him, if and when that comes.”

Mills said the Fraternal Order of Police — Denzinger was secretary of the local lodge — will financially aid the families of both officers in the years ahead.

“We’re going to be there for them,” Mills said. “All resources will be utilized.”



THE LAST CASUALTIES

Before Frank Denzinger, Floyd County Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel A. Mayfield was the most recent county officer to be killed while on duty.

On Jan. 24, 1926, Mayfield was among several officers trading fire with a group of men on a stone bridge crossing Falling Run Creek in western New Albany.

The men were suspected of robbing a Lanesville bank, and one of them shot Mayfield, 60, to death.

The most recent casualty for New Albany police was Otto Welch, whose motorcycle struck a car Dec. 15, 1922.

By mid-March, 348 officers had been killed on duty in the history of Indiana.

— Floyd County Sheriff’s Department, New Albany Police Department, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund