Detective returns fire, wounding assailant
Published 12:00 am Monday, March 10, 2003
By LEONARD GRAY
DES ALLEMANDS – A narcotics detective returned fire when a shotgun blast missed him Thursday night on Tregle Lane in Des Allemands.
The resident, Terry Baraglia, 34, of 208 Tregle Lane, will face a charge of attempted murder of a police officer. He was himself shot in the legs. He underwent surgery at West Jefferson Medical Center Friday.
The detective was placed on administrative leave, pending the result of the incident investigation, according to Maj. Sam Zinna, head of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investi-gation Division.
Zinna said three narcotics detectives were in the Tregle Lane area, looking for someone. They noticed a party in progress in the 200 block of Tregle Lane but continued in their search.
Soon thereafter, a 9-1-1 call came from a neighbor complaining about the party’s noise, and the detectives, as the closest to the scene, were directed to respond.
Once they arrived at the scene and identified themselves, the party began to quiet down, but one irate neighbor nevertheless had gone into his home to get a gun.
One of the detectives approached the house and stood at the corner of the house, knocking on the wall loudly and identifiying himself as a police officer.
Instead, Baraglia burst out the front door onto his porch, whirled around with hsi 12-gauge shotgun and fired upon the first person he saw – the narcotics detectives.
The single shot fired missed the detective, who returned fire and shot Baraglai in the legs.
Zinna said a second man had also gone for his own gun, but once he learned the new arrivals were sheriff’s deputies, he stopped in his tracks and never got his gun.