INDIANAPOLIS --
A parole officer was suspended Tuesday after the Indiana Department of Correction admitted mistakes were made allowing the man accused of shooting an Indianapolis police officer to be released from the Marion County Jail last month even though he was on parole at the time.
Officials with the Indiana Department of Correction told 6News that monthly records checks were not performed on Thomas Hardy, 60, the main suspect in the shooting of Officer David Moore, 29, on Sunday.
Officer Moore succumbed to his injuries this morning
Hardy was paroled in October 2009 after a 1,000-day sentence for theft and receiving stolen property and was arrested again on Nov. 1, 2010, on charges of theft, receiving stolen property and vehicle theft.
He was released from the Marion County Jail on Dec. 21 after posting bond.
"There were two issues here. The first was a requirement internally, not a state law, that parole agents check justice or NCIC (National Crime Information Center) to determine whether any of the parolees under their supervision have been arrested, on a monthly basis," said Doug Garrison, communications chief at IDOC. "That was not done."
Garrison said that the parole officer never entered Hardy into the system as a parolee, so jail officials didn't know his status.
If all of those checks had been made, there is a chance that Hardy would have been in jail and not out on the streets Sunday morning.
Officials confirmed Tuesday that a parole officer had been placed on administrative suspension without pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, 6News' Jack Rinehart reported.
The IDOC issued a formal apology to Moore's family concerning the incident. Moore's father, Spencer Moore, Lt. Spencer Moore, said the family is not upset.
"I assured them there's no blame, no anger about it, and I was assured that they understood the problem in the system and they were going to work to fix it," he told Rinehart on Tuesday. "I have faith that they will do that. And so, to me, that's put to rest."
Hardy has a lengthy rap sheet, with convictions for crimes such as theft, receiving stolen property, burglary and drug possession from the 1980s through last month. He served more than six years in prison after a 1984 conviction on a burglary charge and had been arrested at least nine times in Marion County since 2003.
Police said Hardy robbed a Dollar General store in the 1800 block of South Emerson Avenue within an hour of the shooting of Moore in the 3400 block of Temple Avenue.
Moore, who was shot twice in the face and once in the thigh during a traffic stop, was not expected to recover from his injuries, doctors said Tuesday.
Copyright 2011 by TheIndyChannel.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
