Wood County to honor 2 fallen police officers

5/11/2009

BOWLING GREEN Wood County law enforcement officers are to gather outside the courthouse at noon Wednesday for the annual Wood County Police Memorial Service.

The public service will pay special tribute to two Bowling Green police officers who died in the line of duty.

They are Patrolman Ralph Castner, who died April 23, 1931, after a shootout with Frank Mitchell and William Billy the Killer Miller, and Patrolman Austin Harman, killed May 12, 1919, when a fellow officer s revolver accidentally discharged.

Mr. Harman s name is being added to the local memorial and to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this year. That is the result of work by a Lucas County sheriff s deputy, who was researching homicides dating to 1910 and found articles about Mr. Harman s death in newspaper accounts of the incident.