FBI director: Slain Terre Haute cop did what ‘needed to be done’

A veteran Indiana police officer who was killed in an ambush outside of an FBI field office last week was a valued member of an FBI task force for more than a decade, the agency’s director said at the officer’s funeral Tuesday.

Terre Haute police Detective Greg Ferency worked on investigations ranging from drugs to counterterrorism during his 11 years on the task force, FBI Director Christopher Wray told hundreds of police officers and other mourners at Indiana State University’s Hulman Center basketball arena.

“To his FBI teammates, Greg was ‘the guy,'” Wray said. “He did whatever needed to be done. Never said no. He always, always had your back.”

Ferency, 53, was killed last Wednesday after a man threw a Molotov cocktail at an FBI office in the city roughly 70 miles west of Indianapolis and then shot the officer as he emerged from the building, authorities said. The 30-year police veteran and an FBI agent both fired on the attacker, wounding him.

Local and federal law enforcement officers from throughout Indiana and other states filed past Ferency’s flag-draped casket as the funeral began. A procession with hundreds of police vehicles passed under a large U.S. flag suspended between two extended fire truck ladders over a city street on its way to a cemetery for Ferency’s burial.

Colleagues recalled Ferency, who was the father of 18-year-old twins, as a gregarious friend and an eager mentor for younger officers.

Police Chief Shawn Keen said he first met Ferency because they lived across the street from one another, and that after he joined the department, Ferency helped him out as a young detective “more times than I can count.”

“He also never treated me like I was stupid, even when I was,” Keen said.

The suspected gunman, 44-year-old Shane Meehan, is charged with premeditated murder of a federal agent. Investigators haven’t disclosed a possible motive for the attack.