FBI Director: Slain Terre Haute Cop Did What 'Needed To Be Done'

Adam Pinker and Associated Press

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A veteran Indiana police officer who was killed in an ambush outside of an FBI office in Terre Haute 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.

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.”

A procession led by dozens of police vehicles left the Hulman Center Tuesday afternoon, and brought Detective Ferency’s body by the Terre Haute Police Department one last time before he was interred at Calvary Cemetery.

The 30-year-law enforcement veteran leaves behind two children.  Retired principal Susan Mardis knew both while they were students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School.

“I also know Greg’s parents Dottie and Mike and of course I had the children and just to think of them losing their father just as they graduated high school,” said Mardis.

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 also fired on the attacker and wounded him.

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.

This story has been updated.