NEW ORLEANS — A nine-year veteran of the New Orleans Police Department was found dead during a wellness check in Gentilly on Tuesday morning.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said officers responded to a home in the 5100 block of Touro Street where they found the body of a 36-year-old woman who was later identified as an NOPD officer. Ferguson did not share the officer's name, saying that it was unclear if her family was notified about her death.
Neighbors told WWL-TV that they heard a gunshot in the area around 8:39 a.m.
Ferguson said the department's homicide division was investigating the case as an "unclassified death."
“It is a bad day,” Ferguson said at a brief media conference on the scene. “And I just ask that you keep our officers, and this community, and this family in your prayers. We will continue to give our support to the family and especially to our officers as they are going through this grieving moment.”
Adrian Darby, who lives in the area, says he was helping the victim this morning because she was having car trouble and then went about the rest of his day. But later he got a phone call from his son saying she was dead.
“Just being there, I was probably the last person to talk to her before she died because when she went in the house that was it no other neighbors were outside," Dardy said. "My son was at the bakery with me and it happened and I don’t know 10 minutes from talking to her next thing, you know she’s dead.”
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