The suspect in a police stand off and shoot out at his North Stamford home was decked out in camouflage with Nazi insignia, according to Stamford’s Assistant Police Chief Richard Conklin.
It unfolded Tuesday, when a state marshal arrived at Jed and Carmen Parkington’s home on Oaklawn Avenue, to evict them. Court documents show their house was in foreclosure and an eviction was ordered.
When the marshal arrived, Jed Parkington, 63, began an hours-long standoff and exchanged gunfire with Stamford Police, according to Conklin, who said Parkington made his wife leave the house before firing the shots at police outside.
“The marshal shows up, and he [Jed Parkington] pushes her out the door, also presenting in full camouflage with alleged Nazi insignias on the lapel. So that's a troubling type of situation,” Conklin said.
Parkington shot at officers with a high-caliber weapon, likely an AK-47, Conklin said.
After hearing a single gunshot inside the home, officers dispatched a drone to identify whether Parkington was dead, and discovered explosives scattered throughout the home.
“There was a number of things cited that gave us deep pause, things that looked like pipe bombs and grenades and Molotov cocktails, and they seem to be spread out,” Conklin said.
The drone also located a decomposing body on the second floor of the home. The corpse’s age and gender wasn’t readily identifiable through the drone footage.
Jed and Carmen Parkington were the only known residents at the time of the incident, Conklin said.
The couple’s eviction was believed to be part of the impetus for the shooting, but there were more concerns at play, Conklin said.
“It's a contributing factor. But in retrospect, you have a decomposing body found, and you know the dynamics of that, we're rapidly trying to come up to speed on. And how that factors into this situation, we're certainly racing to learn more about that,” Conklin said.
The family’s housing history
Aside from a domestic argument two years ago, in which no arrest was made, Stamford police had no contact with the family or reason to believe Parkington was a threat.
The city’s hostage negotiation team tried to reason with Parkington before the shooting began, Stamford Police Chief Timothy Shaw said.
“The hostage negotiation team was doing their best to communicate with this individual, and anytime they thought they made progress, it ended up not working out,” Shaw said. “
The State Medical Examiner’s office, in Farmington, is now in possession of the decomposing body and will conduct an evaluation. The Stamford Police Department is leading that investigation. However, Connecticut State Police will investigate what led to the standoff and shooting, Shaw said.
Foreclosure on the Parkington’s home began in 2018 after they failed to pay their mortgage, according to court records. After a years-long legal battle, eviction proceedings began earlier this year.
Jed Parkington appealed to the judge overseeing the eviction case, saying he had terminal brain cancer and ineffective lawyers were partly to blame for the eviction.
“Our disappointing lawyers decided to play it safe and go through the motions and send bills instead of truly fighting for us,” Jed Parkington wrote.
Carmen Parkington also wrote the judge a letter, dated Monday. Parkington said she suffers from diabetes, depression and memory loss.
“I do not have a place to move,” Parkington wrote. “I applied for housing but the wait list is so long, minimum a year.”
Jed Parkington lost his job in 2014 and the family have been unable to reach financial stability since, Carmen Parkington wrote.
“Winter is coming and I am afraid to be left on the street in the middle of winter,” Carmen Parkington wrote.
