Judge Meyer returns to Superior Court 2 bench for first time since shooting
Plus, plaque dedicated to mark history and contributions of Bethel A.M.E. in downtown Lafayette. And prep for Indiana Senate District 23 recount process reaches Tippecanoe County.
Thanks for ongoing support from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.
JUDGE MEYER RETURNS TO SUPERIOR COURT 2 BENCH FOR FIRST TIME SINCE SHOOTING
Judge Steve Meyer was back on the bench Monday morning in Tippecanoe County Superior Court 2, holding hearings for the first time since he was shot in a Jan. 18 murder attempt at his Lafayette home.
Meyer had been on leave since then, with Senior Judge John Potter filling in on the caseload in Superior Court 2. The Indiana Supreme Court rescinded Potter’s appointment as of May 31, and Meyer rounded out his first morning back navigating though financial disputes in a custody case that took nearly an hour.
“I am happy to be back on the bench to continue the work I was elected to do for the people of Tippecanoe County,” Meyer said in statement channeled through the Indiana Supreme Court.
“I am grateful to Senior Judge Potter who managed my docket in recent months, my staff for their professionalism, and my fellow Tippecanoe County judges and the local attorneys who all filled roles to make sure court operations were not interrupted,” Meyer said. “It is important for me to express, as I did in January, that this incident has not deterred me or shaken my trust in the judicial system.”
Meyer declined after Monday’s court session to comment further publicly about his return or about his recovery since the January shooting that injured he and Kim Meyer, his wife. He also continued to defer on questions about the pending cases tied to the shooting.
Meyer, who had already indicated he didn’t plan to run for re-election in November and will retire at the end of the year, had been signaling his return to the bench in the weeks after the shooting. In February, he administered an oath of office for Kevin McDaniel, who had been appointed to fill a term as Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 judge after Judge Randy Williams’ retirement, in a ceremony hosted by the Tippecanoe County Bar Association and attended by Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush.
Days after the shooting, Meyer had said: “I want the community to know that I have strong faith in our judicial system. This horrific violence will not shake my belief in the importance of peacefully resolving disputes. I remain confident we have the best judicial system in the world, and I am proud to be a part of it.”
Four people still awaiting trial have been charged with a dozen or more counts, including attempted murder, for the Jan. 18 shooting. Prosecutors have built their allegations around what they call part of a plot to upend a jury trial on intimidation and domestic battery charges filed against Thomas Moss, 34, of Lafayette, in 2024 and had been scheduled to start two days later, on Jan. 20, in Superior Court 2.
Trials are scheduled through much of 2026 for Moss; the alleged gunman Raylen Ferguson, 38, of Lexington, Kentucky; and alleged co-conspirators Nevaeh Bell, 23, of Lafayette, and Blake Smith, 32, of Dayton.
NEW PLAQUE MARKS HISTORY, CONTRIBUTIONS OF BETHEL A.M.E. LAFAYETTE
Members of the Bethel A.M.E. congregation, marking 180 years in Lafayette, and the local chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution officially unveiled a marker outside the church to note one of the city’s oldest congregations and a key cultural site for Black residents who settled here before the Civil War.
The marker, at 820 Ferry St., references a visit to Lafayette by abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1867 on one side and a history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that dates to 1794 on the other.
“As we look at this marker, as we drive past it, as we walk past it, let us remember to let our light shine as they did through the individuals who have made this possible,” the Rev. Lenore Williams, presiding elder for the Indiana Conference North District of the A.M.E. Church, said during a prayer for a crowd gathered at an unveiling ceremony Sunday afternoon.
The marker is the second nod to Douglass’ visit to Lafayette in the past year, following the fall 2025 completion of a mural at 707 Main St. that also features portraits of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. That project also was guided in part by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
On a stop in Lafayette, Douglass, a leading civil rights leader of the 19th century, spoke for nearly 2½ hours to an overflow crowd on April 18, 1867, during an event that raised more than $200 for the Bethel AME Church after the congregation had moved from its original location on Cincinnati Street to its current home on Ferry Street. From an account collected for the Tippecanoe County Historical Association by the late Mary Anthrop, the Lafayette Daily Courier had this description of the day: “He stood before his audience, like a statue of Jefferson done in bronze – calm, majestic, impressive – the true type of a self-made man, rising superior to the circumstances which chained him down, and achieving greatness in the face of unreasoning prejudice and unscrupulous wrong.”
Amber Neal-Stanley, an assistant professor at Purdue and a member of Bethel A.M.E., said Douglass’ visit was part of the social and cultural programming that raised money at a time when the congregation’s earliest members had taken on heavy debt to move into the former home of St. James Lutheran Church, which served as a place to worship and serve as a school for many of the city’s Black children.
According to a TCHA history, the city census in 1846, when the congregation formed and Lafayette was two decades old, 180 of Lafayette’s 4,146 residents claimed to be of African descent.
“Bethel A.M.E. Lafayette was more than just a school in local Black history,” Neal-Stanley said. “It was the social, political and cultural hub for Lafayette’s small but enterprising Black population. It hosted fairs, political rallies and even one of the largest celebrations in Indiana for the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 that gave Black men the right to vote. … For generations, Bethel A.M.E. Lafayette has nurtured leaders, sustained our hope and provided a space for self-determination when no other space or institution could or would, serving not only as a spiritual home but also as a center for community organizing and advancement. Today, this church building stands as one of the last physical landmarks of African American history before the Civil War here in Lafayette.”
Diana Vice, an historian with the local chapter of the DAR, said the marker was a next step in the organization’s effort to preserve part of Black history in the community. Part of that, stirred by the relegation of 18 Black soldiers from Tippecanoe County to the back of the state’s “Gold Star Honor Roll,” led to a 2018 headstone dedication and a military service at Spring Vale Cemetery at a previously unmarked grave of Leonard Inman, a WWI veteran and Bethel A.M.E. member. Vice said she met the late Rev. Pamela Jones-Horne, Bethel A.M.E.’s pastor, who encouraged the project and contributed the A.M.E. church history on the second side of the marker.
“Historians and researchers have been working to bring the puzzle pieces back together and get the stories out to reveal how important this place has been to us all,” Kelly Lippie, Tippecanoe County’s historian, said. “This marker is really just a start of the story … but I think the enthusiasm generated by this milestone, this marker, will lead to new histories being discovered and new opportunities for stories.”
DIRECTOR: RECOUNT IN SENATE DISTRICT 23 AIMS AT JUNE 16 START
A recount in Indiana Senate District 23’s Republican primary is being aimed to start June 16, Evan Norris, recount director said Monday as state election crews did inspections of records sealed by Indiana State Police at the Tippecanoe County Office Building in downtown Lafayette.
