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| Chief Mike DeNardo |
On Thursday September 8th 2016, Bay St. Louis, Miss., Police Chief Mike De Nardo was suspended from his duties as part of an investigation by the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office into an ongoing personnel issue.
Immediately after receiving the news, De Nardo turned in his city belongings and walked out to the parking lot, accompanied by two Hancock deputies. De Nardo grabbed a gun — it is unclear whether the weapon belonged to him or one of the two deputies — and shot himself in the chest.
Witnesses told the Sun Herald that De Nardo continued speaking after shooting himself and seemed alert as he was loaded into an ambulance. He was rushed to the Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss., where he was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m.
Bay St. Louis Mayor Les Fillingame told the Associated Press that De Nardo was under investigation, but he declined to give any more details concerning either the investigation or the suspension. Fillingame also told the Associated Press he believed De Nardo would have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
But he also told WLOX that the evidence against De Nardo seemed “credible.”
“We were made aware of what seemed to be credible evidence,” Fillingametold WLOX. “No charges were filed. Just the very initial phase of an investigation.”
The AP reported Friday that De Nardo was facing an investigation focused on the sale of weapons:
Hancock County Chief Deputy Don Bass told the Associated Press that Bay St. Louis police chief Mike DeNardo illegally sold one city-owned assault rifle, and that authorities were looking into allegations that other city-owned weapons were sold as well.
It wasn’t clear if the buyer knew the sale was illegal, and Bass said he could not discuss whether the weapon was evidence from a case or had been purchased for the department’s use.
According to the police department’s website, De Nardo spent 30 years in law enforcement before his death Thursday. He served as a patrol supervisor and SWAT commander for 18 years at the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana before taking a position as a patrolman at the Bay St. Louis Police Department in 2004. There, he quickly rose through the ranks to patrol supervisor, then deputy chief.
Fillingame appointed him as police chief in 2010.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked in my life,” Fillingame told the Sun Herald. “He lost his mother this weekend. He had just gotten back from New York.”
Fillingame called De Nardo a “tremendous chief” who was a mentor and a friend.
