Age: 33
Served: 7 years
2006 to May 25, 2013
PROLOGUE
Jason Ellis, son of Denny and Pam (Dearwester) Ellis, grew up in Batavia, Ohio and graduated from Glen Este High School in Withamsville, Ohio in 1998. He entered Cumberland College and played catcher for their baseball team. In 2013 he still held the college’s career records for batting average (.389), hits (246), doubles (60), home runs (34), runs batted in (183), and games played (186). He was signed by the Cincinnati Reds and played for their minor league in Sarasota, Florida and Billings, Montana. During 2005, he left the Reds organization “to make a difference” and in 2006 joined the Bardstown Police Department.
In less than three years, Officer Ellis received Governor’s Awards for Impaired Driving Enforcement in 2007 and 2008 and was awarded Officer of the Year in 2008. He also became the Department’s only canine officer in 2008. He further served his community as a youth baseball coach.
INCIDENT
At 1:59 a.m. on May 25, 2013, after a late arrest and having put his prisoner in the Bardstown jail, Officer Ellis secured his tour of duty on second shift and headed home to Bloomfield. He did not have his canine partner with him at the time and was operating a pool car. As such, he did not have a camera mounted on the dash.
About 2:30 a.m., as he left the Blue Grass Highway on Exit 34, he found the ramp blocked with tree limbs. He turned on his overhead lights, turned the patrol car to block the ramp, and began clearing the limbs. With several cradled in his arms, shotgun blasts rang out from the embankment. Pellets tore into Officer Ellis’s arm, side, neck, head, and other areas not protected by his ballistic vest. He fell to the ground, more or less among the limbs he was carrying.
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