Herbert D. Proffitt, 82, a long-serving law enforcement figure in Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was fatally shot on August 28, 2012, as he walked down his driveway to check his mail. Proffitt had served 55 years in local law enforcement, including as Chief of Police and Monroe County Sheriff, and was a U.S. Army veteran. He was known by the nickname Sprocket.

The shooter was 81-year-old Charles Hammer, a local man whose antagonism toward Proffitt dated back to the 1970s. Prosecutors say Hammer had been arrested by Proffitt for domestic violence in the 1970s, a conviction that carried a lengthy prison term, and the two continued to have repeated run-ins afterward. Copies of the original citations from those arrests were found on Hammer after the killing, a detail investigators cited as evidence of a revenge motive. Hammer fled after the shooting but was captured several hours later.

Proffitt’s death was treated as a line-of-duty homicide. Does anyone have memories of Proffitt’s service in Monroe County or information about the decades-long conflict between these men?