In the late winter of 2018, the life of 34-year-old Jacob Matthew Pickett, a male Boone County Sheriff's Deputy, was tragically cut short following a sequence of events that began with a routine attempt to serve a warrant in Lebanon, Indiana. On the morning of March 2, officers from the Lebanon Police Department were on Yates Street to serve a warrant on a woman. While there, they recognized a man, John Baldwin, Jr., 28, who had outstanding warrants for auto theft and possession of a syringe.
When police ordered him to stop, Baldwin fled in a vehicle with two other men, sparking a pursuit.
Deputy Pickett, a K-9 handler with the Boone County Sheriff's Office, joined the chase. The pursuit came to a stop over a mile away, where two of the men exited the vehicle and fled on foot. As Deputy Pickett and his K-9 partner, Brik, pursued one of the suspects on foot along Indian Springs Road, he was shot in the head as he rounded the corner of a building. The man who shot him was 21-year-old Anthony Baumgardt. Deputy Pickett was rushed to Witham Memorial Hospital and then airlifted to St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital. He remained on life support for three days, allowing for his organs to be donated, before he succumbed to his injuries on March 5, 2018.
Following the shooting, a second pursuit ensued, and Baldwin was taken into custody. Baumgardt, who was wounded by return fire from other officers, was also apprehended. A third individual, who provided the firearm used by Baumgardt, was later identified and charged. The investigation revealed that Baumgardt told police, 'I shot a cop because they were going to take me to jail.'
In May 2019, Anthony Baumgardt pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. John Baldwin, Jr. was sentenced to 42 ½ years in prison in January 2021 for dealing in methamphetamine and resisting law enforcement. The man who supplied the 9mm handgun used in the shooting pleaded guilty to dealing in methamphetamine, providing a firearm to an ineligible person, and other drug charges, receiving a sentence of 46 years in prison. Deputy Pickett was a seven-year veteran of law enforcement and was survived by his wife and two young sons.
