Louisiana Sheriff’s Deputy Dies Five Years After Being Shot in Drug Raid

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Detective Stephen Arnold died on Sunday from multiple gunshot wounds he sustained during a drug raid in January 2016. The detective, on loan to a DEA Task Force, remained hospitalized in a coma from his wounds for more than five years before passing over the weekend.

Detective Arnold joined with DEA agents on January 26, 2016, to serve an arrest warrant in New Orleans. When Arnold entered the residence, Jarvis Hardy opened fire striking Arnold five times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. Sheriff Joe Lopinto told the news outlet that Arnold’s brain was deprived of oxygen for more than 30 minutes after he was shot.

Arnold remained comatose for more than five years. He could not speak or walk, the sheriff said. He relied on a tracheotomy to breathe and needed to be fed with a tube. He remained in a nursing home.

The sheriff added that Arnold “was just a great overall guy. He was not only a leader, but a leader on the narcotics (division), being assigned to the DEA task force and always answering the call for duty and in this community.”

Jarvis Hardy maintained that he thought he was shooting at robbers and did not intend to shoot Arnold. A federal court disagreed and convicted him of shooting Arnold and for multiple drug-related and gun charges. The court sentenced Hardy to 35 years in federal prison. Sheriff Lopinto said the sentence and conviction took Arnold’s eventual death into account.

Arnold received multiple awards for his service to the community, the sheriff said. These included two Distinguished Service Awards and an Award for Valor. He received the department’s Purple Heart for the wounds sustained in the shooting and will be awarded the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Medal of Honor posthumously.