Jersey City Police Department, New Jersey
End of Watch: Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Age: 37
Tour of Duty: 10 years
Badge Number: 2771
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: July 16, 2009
Weapon Used: Shotgun
Suspect Info: Shot and killed
Detective Marc DiNardo died from gunshot wounds he received five days earlier when he and four other officers were shot while attempting to apprehend two suspects wanted for robbing and shooting a citizen.
On the morning of Thursday, July 16, 2009, a Jersey City Police lieutenant and police officer were staking out a parked car believed to have been the getaway car used in a violent robbery in which a person was shot. At 5:15 a.m two suspects, one male and one female, wearing bathrobes entered the vehicle, moved it across the street and stepped back out. The lieutenant and officer ordered the suspects to stop, but the male suspect turned, pulled a shotgun from under his robe and began firing, grazing one officer in the leg and shattering the windshield of the unmarked police car used in the stakeout.
The suspect then fled to a third-floor apartment at 24 Reed Street and dozens of backup police officers from the Jersey City Police Department, Hudson County Sheriff's Office, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department began arriving on the scene.
Officers spent the next hour and a half evacuating the building. At about 6:45 a.m., members of the Jersey City Emergency Service Unit, including Detective DiNardo, approached apartment 3B and demanded that the occupants come out. When no one answered, the officers used a battering ram to gain entry. Upon entering, the officers were immediately fired upon by the suspect. Detective DiNardo was shot in the face, and a second officer was shot in the neck. Additionally, another Jersey City police officer was wounded along with a police officer from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department.
Both suspects were shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire with the officers when the officers entered the apartment.
It was later determined that the male suspect, who shot the officers, was a violent career criminal who had recently been released from prison after serving five years for weapons possession charges that Detective DiNardo had arrested him on.
Detective DiNardo was taken to the Jersey City Medical Center where he died five days later from his wounds. His organs were all donated for transplant.
Detective DiNardo had served with the Jersey City Police Department for 10 years and was assigned to the Emergency Service Unit. He is survived by his wife and three young children.
In May 2011, his former elementary school, P. S. 23, was renamed Marc Anthony DiNardo School.