By Justin Roberts
News Editor, ‘10
Jersey City honored Detective Marc Dinardo of the JCPD during his funeral procession along Bergen Avenue on Friday, August 24, 2009.
A man died on Tuesday, July 21st.  Friends and family looking for the comfort of his presence find emptiness instead.  His mother, wife, and three children – 4 year old Gwendolyn, 3 year old Marc Anthony and 1 year old Ella- attended his funeral on Friday the 24th, beginning their lives without him when they had been planning to celebrate his 38th birthday on Wednesday.
Officer Marc Dinardo was shot at approximately 6:44 a.m. on Thursday, July 16th while participating in a raid on apartment 3B in 24 Reed Street, 4 blocks from Saint Peter’s College.  He died twice: once on the way to the Jersey City Medical Center and again on Tuesday, July 21st, recorded by doctors at 9:35 a.m.
Dinardo spent the time between on life support while his body struggled to heal the damage a 12 gauge pump action shotgun had done to his face and jaw.  The shotgun was fired by Hassian A. Shakur, 32, who stole it in North Carolina in 2007. Thirty shots were fired during the 15 second gunfight, meaning that Shakur probably did not recognize Dinardo as the cop who sent him to prison for 5 years in 2002 for illegal weapons possession.
Early on the morning of the 16th, Detectives Marc Lavelle and Mike Kelly sat in an unmarked car near the intersection of Monticello and Fairview Avenues.  They were looking for the owner of a red Ford that had been caught on tape fleeing a Jersey City oil-change garage on June 18th.  The car’s occupants, Mr. Shakur and Amanda Anderson, 22, sped away after robbing and then shooting a 43 year old man in the abdomen.
At 5:15, Mr. Shakur and Ms. Anderson left 24 Reed Street and walked to their car.  Ms. Anderson caught sight of the Detectives and ran while Shakur shed the hooded robe he had been wearing and began firing on the police.  Detective Lavelle was shot in the leg and Kelly was left unscathed.
By 6:30 officers from the JCPD, Hudson County Sheriff’s Office and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had already evacuated most of the building when movement was seen in the apartment the suspects had fled to.  At 6:44 officers broke down the door and were met by bird shot from Shakur’s gun.
Dinardo was hit as well as Officers Frank Molina, Jr., Dennis Mitchell and Michael Camacho.  Both Shakur and Anderson were killed in the struggle that Hudson County prosecutor Edward DeFazio called a justified use of lethal force.
Many Jersey City residents and officials paid close attention to Dinardo’s condition for the six days he spent on life support until Chief Thomas J. Comey announced his imminent death in a press conference on Monday, July 20th.
“It is now a stark reality that the miracle we were so badly seeking will not come to pass,” Comey told the press.
Dinardo’s funeral service was held at St. Aedan’s Church on Bergen Avenue.  Crowds of people filled the pews and later lined the street as his body was saluted by lines of officers in dress uniforms.
Dinardo was a 10 year veteran of the force and a son of retired JCPD lieutenant Paul Dinardo.  He was in the news a month before his death for jumping into the Hackensack River in an attempt to save a Bellville woman who was struggling to stay afloat.  She was saved by officers on a boat who got to her before Dinardo could.
Dinardo graduated from Saint Peter’s College with a degree in Social Science in 1996.  He will be missed.
