Twenty-two years after Butler University Police Officer James L. Davis Jr. was killed in the line of duty, members of the Butler and Indianapolis law enforcement communities gathered to make sure his service is not forgotten.

A replacement memorial sign honoring Davis was dedicated on September 24 near the intersection of 49th Street and Rookwood Avenue, renewing a marker first installed in his honor in 2014.

Davis was killed September 24, 2004, while responding to a report of a suspicious individual at Hinkle Fieldhouse. He approached the individual after reports that he had been watching the women’s basketball team for an extended period. A struggle ensued, and Davis was fatally shot. He left behind his wife and three children.

“His life was to serve his campus and his community,” BUPD Chief John Conley said during Thursday’s ceremony. 

The sign is part of the Fallen Officers Legacy Project, which began in 2012 with an idea from Benjamin Steletovich, son of now-retired Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Steve Steletovich. Working with families of fallen officers and community partners, the project placed memorial signs near locations where Indianapolis-area officers were killed in the line of duty. Davis’s original marker was installed as part of the project in 2014. 

More than a decade later, the Fraternal Order of Police is working to replace signs that have become weathered, damaged, or vandalized. Davis’s sign was among them. 

For Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Marlin Sechrist, the importance of those markers is straightforward.

“The sign sends a real message that we’re not forgotten,” Sechrist said. 

That message takes on added meaning with time. Many of the students who pass the memorial today were not yet born when Davis served at Butler. The sign gives them an opportunity to encounter his name and learn why it remains part of the University’s history.

For the officers who serve Butler today, Davis’s legacy is also reflected in the work they continue to do.

Before Thursday’s ceremony, Conley described that work not in terms of the extraordinary circumstances officers may encounter, but the opportunities they have to help people every day.

“We know that we get up every day, we go out, there’s an opportunity there for us to try to do something good in somebody’s life that particular day,” Conley said. “And that’s the goal that we have.” 

Dr. Christopher Holland, pastor and chaplain for Indianapolis FOP Lodge #86, closed the ceremony with reflections on the purpose of memorials and the responsibility of future generations to understand those who came before them. He spoke of the students and community members who will pass Davis’s sign in the years ahead. 

The people walking past that corner will change. Most will never have known James Davis.

But they will see his name. And 22 years later, Butler still remembers why it is there.