WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A Sedgwick County Sheriff’s deputy who was killed in the line of duty nearly a century ago will have a tombstone installed on his grave this weekend.
The headstone for Deputy Benjamin Franklin Hill will be installed Sunday at Highland Cemetery in Wichita. Hill died on Aug. 16, 1927, during an attempted jailbreak at the Sedgwick County Historical Courthouse.
He is the only Black deputy in the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office to be killed on duty, The Wichita Eagle reported.
Members of the sheriff’s office were placing wreaths on the gravesites of fallen deputies last year when they discovered Hill’s gravesite did not have a headstone.
Active and retired law enforcement officers, the Greater Wichita Ministerial League and the Honore Adversis Foundation donated the money to buy the headstone, Lt. Benjamin Blick said in a news release.
Hill was taking lunch to a cell when he was confronted by three inmates trying to escape. He was shot with a gun that had been smuggled into the jail when he refused the inmates’ demand that he hand over his keys. Another inmate foiled the escape.
Hill also had worked as a lieutenant in the Wichita Fire Department.
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