About 700 law officers from Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana attended the funerals for Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and Arthur Briscoe, his deputy and brother-in-law, on Feb. 2, 1992, in Stanton. The two were shot and killed three days earlier after Briscoe tried to serve a warrant on Ralph Baze Jr. for officials in Toledo, Ohio. Baze opened fire on them with an SKS assault rifle, then took their guns and fled into the hills. “The sheriff’s car is riddled with bullets,” said Ed Robinson, a spokesman for the Richmond state police post. Baze gave himself up eight hours later by calling a 911 emergency number from near Ravenna, about 10 miles away in Estill County. He said he had been shot and asked police to come get him. The shootings left the county with one full-time deputy, Judge-Executive Forest Meadows said. Three days later, mourners filled the Powell County High School gymnasium for the afternoon service. Almost 700 officers in brown, blue, gray and green uniforms filed in, filling the home-side bleachers. The procession to the cemetery stretched more than a mile. Photo by Frank Anderson | Staff

Ralph Baze, center, was taken to the Montgomery County Regional Jail on Jan. 30, 1992. Baze was arrested at Mary Chiles Hospital in Mount Sterling after being treated for a gunshot wound. Baze was convicted and sentenced to die. He was scheduled for execution in 2007 but a stay was issued after he sued on the grounds that execution by lethal injection using the “cocktail” prescribed by Kentucky law constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The United States Supreme Court rejected that claim in 2008. He later challenged Kentucky’s clemency system but lost his appeal in 2015. He is on Death Row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. Photo by Ron Garrison | Staff