Jasper District honors fallen state troopers Mills and Hatfull anniversaries

The Indiana State Police post at 2209 Newton Street in Jasper is more than a memorial site in Dubois County. It is the only original state police post from the 1930s still serving as a district headquarters, and the anniversaries of Trooper Oscar E. Mills and Sgt. John E. Hatfull gave that building a direct line from past sacrifice to present-day policing.

Mills, a Hobart native appointed to the Indiana State Police on Sept. 16, 1955, served in the Lafayette district. He died April 12, 1966, at age 35, more than eight years after a patrol crash during a pursuit of a speeding vehicle near Flora in Carroll County. State police say the Nov. 30, 1957, crash left him unconscious until his death. He was survived by his wife, four children, a sister and his father.

Hatfull, an Evansville native appointed Jan. 28, 1973, died April 13, 1987, at age 47 after being shot while leading an Emergency Response Team into a Posey County residence during a standoff with a suicidal subject. Indiana State Police says he was later posthumously promoted to lieutenant, the only officer in agency history to receive that honor. He was survived by his wife, a son, a daughter and his mother.

The Jasper post itself is part of why the anniversaries still land locally. A historical marker installed there in 2021 says the post was one of the original Indiana State Police posts built in the WPA era, when increased crime during the Great Depression pushed the state to expand its police presence and invest in faster communication technology. Indiana State Police says the districts were reorganized into area commands in 1971 and the posts were renumbered, but Jasper remained in use and still serves as a district headquarters.

That makes the tribute in Jasper less like a backward glance than a reminder of how the job has changed and how it has not. Mills died after a traffic pursuit in Carroll County. Hatfull died during a standoff in Posey County. Both deaths still anchor the district’s public remembrance, including the agency’s in-memoriam pages and district social media, and both remain tied to a headquarters where troopers still report for duty in Dubois County every day.