Chief of Police Harold Lewis Catron, Sr.

Harold Lewis Catron, Sr.

Chief of Police Harold Catron succumbed to wounds received from a shotgun blast on April 11, 1957.

Chief Catron was ambushed in front of his house on Jasper Street by a vehicle driving by, spraying his yard with shotgun pellets. He was struck in the back, and one of the bullets collapsed a lung. His son, age 11, was grazed by one of the bullets.

Three men were arrested. Two were not charged. One of the suspects committed suicide before his trial.

One of the pellets was unable to be removed. Seven years later, the bullet slipped and pierced his heart. He died instantly.

Chief Catron was a United States Army Air Forces WWII veteran and had served with the Somerset Police Department for 14 years. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and two daughters.

One of his sons, Sheriff Sam Catron, was shot and killed in a political assassination on April 13, 2002, while serving as sheriff of Pulaski County, Kentucky.