By Jeremy Kohler
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — City police said Wednesday they will examine whether to set procedures for transporting officers under investigation after one fled from internal-affairs investigators Tuesday afternoon and committed suicide.
Officer Vladimir Vujica, 37, who authorities said apparently shot himself in the head, had been on the force for 2½ years.
Earlier Tuesday, St. Louis County police searched the officer’s home in the 2500 block of Senator Court, in South County and seized a computer as part of an investigation into child pornography, a department spokeswoman said. She said they had reason to think a computer there had been used to traffic in illegal images.
No criminal charges had been filed in the case. A county court official said the search warrant would not be a public record until the list of seized items was filed in court later.
About 5:30 p.m, Tuesday, two city internal affairs detectives were driving Vujica from his shift in the South Patrol Division to headquarters to await the results of the search - and to ask him about where he was living, the department said. Officers are required to live in the city for at least their first seven years with the department.
While en route, Vujica got out of the vehicle near Tucker Boulevard and Park Avenue and ran northeast, the department said. About 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, a passer-by found him near LaSalle Baptist Church, at 1133 Park Avenue, with a gunshot wound to the head.
Vujica was pronounced dead at St. Louis University Hospital.
Among the procedures St. Louis police will examine is whether an officer should be allowed to keep a weapon under such circumstances.
Copyright 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch