Retired Police Captain Killed Guarding Jewelry Store

St. Louis—Retired St. Louis, Missouri police Capt. David Dorn was shot to death by looters while guarding a pawn and jewelry shop early Tuesday morning, according to news reports.

He was 77.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dorn was guarding Lee’s Pawn & Jewelry in what was a brutal night of rioting that saw four police officers shot following protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

Dorn was shot in the torso at around 2:30 am.

He spent 38 years on the St. Louis police force, starting as a rookie patrol officer in 1969 and retiring as a captain and deputy commander of the Bureau of Patrol Support in 2007.

Upon retiring from the force, he became police chief in Moline Acres, Missouri, a city in St. Louis County.

His wife, Ann Marie Dorn, a sergeant with the St. Louis Police Department, told the Post-Dispatch her husband was a friend of the pawn and jewelry store’s owner, and would check on it when alarms went off.

A GoFundMe page has been started for Dorn’s family.

Jewelers’ Security Alliance President John J. Kennedy said Dorn’s murder was the first jewelry store-related fatality relating to the rioting and looting that have sprung up in conjunction with peaceful protests over Floyd’s death.

The only other violent incident Kennedy said he was aware of involved a couple beaten on Saturday in Rochester, New York. 

According to a Fox Business article, unknown assailants who had tried to rob a jewelry store beat the couple, who were tenants in a neighboring building, when they intervened.

Multiple calls to law enforcement in connection to both incidents went unanswered Wednesday.