The Third Hero of Orleans

[New Orleans Police Captain Marlon] Defillo remembered how bad [New Orleans Police Sergeant Paul] Accardo felt when he was unable to help women stranded on the interstate and pleading for water and food. One woman said her baby had not had water in three days.

He even wanted to stop and help the animals lost amid the ruin of New Orleans, Defillo said.

Unable to stop the madness and hurt, Accardo sank into depression.

Those lines appear in an article from the Associated Press. And those of us who've struggled with depression in the past understand what he must have felt as he watched the city to which he'd devoted his life all but wiped off the face of the earth, submerged beneath a liquid mass of sewage, chemicals and rotting corpses. This story should serve to remind everyone of the utter devastation that the Gulf coast has witnessed. This public servant spent more than a week rescuing Katrina's victims, and ultimately reached the conclusion that the city was beyond hope.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Life wasn't supposed to end this way for Sgt. Paul Accardo: alone in chaos.

He wrote a note telling anyone who found him who to contact - a fellow officer. He was precise, and thoughtful, to the end. Then he stuck a gun into his mouth and killed himself.

Accardo was one of two city cops who committed suicide last week as New Orleans descended into an abyss of death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. He was found in an unmarked patrol car on Saturday in a downtown parking lot.

His funeral was planned for Tuesday.

Back when life was normal and structured, Accardo served as one of the police department's chief spokesmen. He reported murders, hostage situations and rapes in measured words, his bespectacled face benign and familiar on the nightly news.

"Paul was a stellar guy. A perfectionist. Everything had to be just right,'' recalled Sgt. Joe Narcisse, who went to police academy with Accardo and worked with him in the public affairs office.

Uniform crisply pressed, office in order, everything just right on his desk. That was Accardo.

"I'm the jokester in the office. I'd move stuff on his desk and he didn't like that,'' said Capt. Marlon Defillo, Accardo's boss. "He was ready to call the crime lab to find out who messed with his desk.''

Maybe, Defillo reckoned, he killed himself because he lost hope that order would ever be restored in the city.

If any criticism is to be levelled against Sergeant Accardo, it's that he took too much personal responsibility for a situation he was powerless to ameliorate. And for blaming himself for not being able to do more to help his fellow Americans. The death of Sergeant Paul Accardo is a national disgrace. And Katrina has claimed the life of another selfless American.

I should acknowledge the blog Light of Reason for an eloquent and tasteful response to this personal tragedy. This isn't politicizing the tragedy of Katrina-- it's understanding the toll such an experience has on the human psyche, particularly in the light of a tragedy that most of us can't even comprehend. May Sergeant Accardo rest in eternal serenity. If anyone has earned it, he has.