Retired police officer David Dorn murdered by looters

A 77-year-old retired St Louis police captain who served 38 years on the force was shot and killed by looters at a pawn shop early Tuesday, authorities said.

David Dorn was found dead on the sidewalk in front of the ransacked store.

At the time of this writing, no one has been arrested. St. Louis Regional Crimestoppers is offering a reward of up to $10,000.00 for any information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons responsible.

Dorn was a friend of the pawn shop’s owner and frequently checked on the business when alarms went off, his wife, Ann Marie Dorn, told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

The shooting and theft apparently was posted on Facebook Live, but the video has since been taken down. It came on a violent night in St. Louis, where four officers were shot, officers were pelted with rocks and fireworks, and 55 businesses were burglarized or damaged, including a convenience store that burned.

Police were shot at by one burglar and fired back, injuring that man.

“Throughout the night, we made 25 arrests for various charges. And then there were 55 businesses and counting that were burglarized and had property damage,” St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden told reporters.

“The fact that he was protecting and serving, this is the way, I feel in my heart of hearts that he would have liked to leave this earth,” Dorn’s son, Brian Powell, told the station.

Former St. Louis County police Chief Tim Fitch knew Dorn for 30 years and said they became close friends when Dorn and his wife were leading the St. Louis police department’s Explorers program for young people interested in law enforcement careers, while Fitch was leading the county’s program.

“He was very dedicated to youth, especially disadvantaged youth,” said Fitch, who led the St. Louis County Police Department from 2009 to 2014. “He wanted to see them succeed. He wanted to be a role model for those young men and women to go into law enforcement.”

Dorn’ s personality was “bigger than life,” Fitch said. “He was a fun guy, a happy guy. You never had to wonder what he was thinking when somebody did something incredibly stupid like a crime because he would just say it as he saw it.”

David Dorn

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