The names on the wall date back to 1832.
Reynolds, 58, contracted COVID while working in the Butler County Jail. He joined Butler County in 2001. His wife, Becky Reynolds, said her husband lived his faith on the job.
“Working in the jail was a ministry to him,” she said, adding that former inmates would share their success stories and colleagues would seek advice.
The solemn ceremony honored the officers who died in the line of duty, and others who had made that sacrifice before them.
“Nothing that I do as attorney general is more important than being here today to recognize the indispensable role that law enforcement officers play in our lives,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said at the 37th Ohio Peace Officers Memorial Ceremony.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“Without the rule of law, we would live in chaos, fear, and destitution. And without brave men and women to defend the rule of law — our peace officers — the rule of law would cease to exist.”
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones called Reynolds “a super great guy. He was a quiet, unassuming man. Inmates loved him, officers loved him.”
In addition to being a corrections officer with Butler County, Reynolds was a member of the Hanover Twp. Fire Department and was an ordained minister, having officiated several colleagues’ weddings.
There are 840 names engraved on the memorial, and Yost lamented the death of Hamilton County Deputy Larry Henderson, Ohio’s first peace officer to die in 2025. On May 1, Rodney Hinton Jr. allegedly drove a car into Henderson while he was operating a traffic light in Clifton during the University of Cincinnati’s commencement.
“We should never accept that these tragedies have to happen,” Yost said. “I’ve grown weary of adding names to this wall during my tenure. I don’t want to see another officer die in the line of duty in Ohio, or anywhere else.”
Other officers honored included Pickaway County Sheriff’s Deputy Rex A. Emerick, a two-time cancer survivor who died in January 2021 at 69 from complications of COVID; Euclid Police officer Jacob Derbin, 23, who was fatally shot in an ambush when responding to a 911 call; and Cleveland Division of Police Officer Jamieson R. Ritter, 27, who was fatally shot while serving an arrest warrant at a home.
There were also two historical honorees, John E. Sellers, a deputy marshal with the Shelby Police Department, was fatally shot in June 1897; and Harvey L. Monbeck, an Ohio Department of Natural Resources game warden, was killed in 1927 in a car crash while en route to investigate reports of poaching at state game reserves south of Dayton.
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