Police memorial set for Tuesday

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2018-10-08

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The Medford Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff's Department honor fallen law enforcement officers in a memorial ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the August D. Singler Memorial Plaza, located between the Jackson County Justice Building and the Jackson County Jail. The ceremony will last about 30 minutes, and will include a proclamation by Medford Mayor Gary Wheeler. A roll call of Southern Oregon officers who have fallen in the line of duty also will be conducted. The ceremony is open to the public. Only one Medford officer has died in the line of duty, Constable George Prescott, who was shot and killed March 16, 1933, while serving a bench warrant on Llewellyn A. Banks, publisher of the Medford Daily News. The arrest warrant followed an investigation and allegations of vote fraud by stealing election ballots and destroying them in an attempt to skew an election, Mail Tribune archives show. Jackson County Sheriff August Singler, for whom the plaza is named, was shot on April 22, 1913, when he served an arrest warrant on 19-year-old Lester Jones on a hillside cabin in Jacksonville. Jones fired a revolver at the sheriff, who returned fire. Jones died instantly, and Singler died two days later, newspaper archives show.