Duty Death: Vincent ‘Vinny’ Liberto
End of Service: 20/09/2019
NOLA Media Group, New Orleans
MANDEVILLE, La. — A Mandeville officer shot and killed after a car chase has been identified as a decorated Marine veteran who leaves behind a wife and seven children, officials said Friday evening.
Capt. Vincent ‘Vinny’ Liberto Jr. was killed and another officer was wounded at the intersection of Causeway Boulevard and La. 22/U.S. 190.
Liberto, 58, graduated from Brother Martin High School in New Orleans and served 10 years in the United States Marine Corps before he was honorably discharged as a sergeant.
Liberto joined the Mandeville Police Department in 1994 and was a graduate of the F.B.I. National Academy and had received several awards, Mandeville Police Chief Gerald Sticker said.
Liberto is survived by a wife and seven children, some of whom are law enforcement officers or in the military, Sticker said.
The other wounded officer, who was not identified, was taken to an area hospital and was expected to recover. St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith had said earlier that the officer suffered a graze wound to the top of his head.
In an incident that stunned the usually quiet north shore community of Mandeville, two police officers were shot Friday afternoon — one fatally — near a congested intersection following a vehicle chase.
“It’s a bad day for the Mandeville Police Department,” a somber Sticker said at a news conference earlier Friday.
Investigators were still at the scene Friday night, and State Police offered few details.
But Gov. John Bel Edwards told The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate that State Police told him the shooting followed a vehicle chase. And it appeared the crime scene included multiple locations in the area bounded by La. 22, Causeway Boulevard and the Beau Chene neighborhood.
“We have a wife that’s grieving. We have children that are grieving,” Sticker said.
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