Second body in deadly Stamford standoff was homicide victim

A Stamford, Connecticut, man who died last week after an hours-long standoff with police fired at Bearcat armored vehicles, destroyed several police drones and wore a military-style shirt with a Nazi insignia, the state inspector general’s office said Tuesday.

These accounts are among the details that emerged in Inspector General Eliot Prescotton’s preliminary report on the deadly Dec. 2 incident. For much of the afternoon, police exchanged gunfire with Jed Parkington until the 63-year-old took his own life. Parkington’s autopsy confirmed he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

A second decomposing body discovered by responders during a search of the house for explosives after the siege turned out to be a homicide victim who died of “blunt force injuries to the head and torso with gagging,” the chief medical examiner’s office told police, according to the report. The remains had not been identified as of Tuesday. Neighbors told ABC News the couple occasionally rented rooms.

The first person a Connecticut state marshal encountered around 9 a.m. to serve a notice of eviction by foreclosure was Parkington’s wife, Carmen Parkington, in the driveway with her dog. They walked to the back door, where Parkington confronted them.

“Take her somewhere safe,” he said, pushing his wife out. “This is not going to end well.”

A utility belt around his waist appeared to be hanging from explosive devices, and the marshal called for reinforcements. Officers from the Stamford Police Department attended and unsuccessfully attempted to contact Parkington. They also called in Stamford’s hostage negotiation and special response teams.

Parkington spoke to the negotiator by telephone while he remained barricaded on the second floor, but refused to leave the house.

“Yeah, I don’t have anywhere to go,” he said, according to audio released with the report. His father, a World War II veteran, had told him stories about “how to defend a house,” he said, adding of his father during the war: “They gave him a lot of cigarettes and everything, and guess what? Lung cancer. »

He also denounced the “financial racket” of the war, whose orchestrators “use people as pawns”.

Parkington said he and his wife had been looking for a place to live for three years without success and that he had lived in the house since 2005.

“You see, how can they evict people if they have nowhere to put them except shelter?” asked Parkington. “Treating people like trash. »

At 12:34 p.m., Special Response Team members arrived in two Bearcat armored vehicles and told Parkington via a megaphone to come out with his hands up because he was under arrest. His response was a barrage of gunfire. Footage filmed inside the vehicles captured the sound of bullets clanging against the trucks. Attempts to end the standoff with non-lethal flash explosions got the same response.

“Parkington again fired at officers outside and, on several occasions, shot down drones … to determine Parkington’s location in the house,” the inspector general’s report said.

The police returned fire but did not hit him. At 3:30 p.m., they heard “a single gunshot” coming from inside the house and flew a drone inside.

“Parkington was observed with a single gunshot wound to the head and appeared to be deceased,” the report states. “The drone footage also revealed the presence of grenades, a pipe bomb and other improvised explosive devices.”