After a suspended MS police chief shot and killed himself in the police department’s parking lot, officials said the department has been temporarily put under the local sheriff’s control.
Advertisement
One day after the Bay St. Louis police chief died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, details are beginning to surface. He says authorities were looking into allegations that other city-owned weapons were sold as well.
“We can’t get his side of the story”, Bass said.
Police officers in MS are mourning the loss of a police chief who fatally shot and killed himself after receiving a suspension without pay. Bass says DeNardo went to the parking lot, retrieved a shotgun from his trunk and shot himself. A federal official also said investigators received “unsubstantiated criminal intelligence” about DeNardo.
DeNardo was taken to a hospital in Gulfport, where he died.
“We weren’t privy to the investigation at all until Wednesday, when investigators came in with some pretty compelling evidence that something happened outside the city”, Fillingame said.
Fillingame said De Nardo was in the process of being suspended pending an investigation by an outside agency. He could not go into details about what the allegations were.
The sheriff will be stepping in to temporarily help the Police Department.
Bay St. Louis City Hall closed early.
Retired fire chief Bobby Gavagnie (GAH’-veh-nee) called Chief Mike DeNardo a “fine individual”. Jason Denham, the resident agent in charge for the Gulfport field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the agency received the allegations only a day or two before DeNardo’s death.
“At that time, it just kind of went bad”, he said.
Neither Gavagnie nor Lee said they knew much about why DeNardo was suspended without pay shortly before his death. Before joining the force in Bay St. Louis, the police officer served 18 years at the St. Tammany Parish Sherrif’s Office in Louisiana, CBS News reported.
He also said that De Nardo was “reeling from the death of his mother”, was in a state of personal grief and also was dealing with an investigation.
It is unclear why De Nardo took his own life, but Hancock County Sheriff Ricky Adam told WLOX he suspects the suspension played a role in De Nardo’s suicide.
Mayor Les Fillingame is being deliberately vague about the nature of the investigation that led to De Nardo’s suspension.
“He was just a tremendous public servant, and he’s going to be greatly missed”, Fillingame said. According to colleagues who witnessed the incident at the station, the shooting appeared to be intentional.
UPDATE: According to the Associated Press, De Nardo was being investigated for illegally selling city-owned firearms.
Advertisement
De Nardo was taken by ambulance from the police department about 3 p.m. Coast law enforcement officials blocked intersections along US 90 for the ambulance.
