Coast remembers slain deputy
FORT BRAGG >> The Fort Bragg Police Department mourned together Friday, March 19, as they marked the seventh anniversary of the death of their fellow officer and deputy, Ricky DelFiorentino.
Deputy DelFiorentino was ambushed in 2014, when he came across a suspect who was on a crime spree from Oregon to Fort Bragg.
DelFiorentino located the suspect vehicle near Ward Avenue, but as he parked and began to exit his patrol car to find the suspect, he was shot to death by the suspect who was hiding in the brush.”
Current Fort Bragg Police Chief John Naulty was the first officer on the scene that day, and it was Naulty who stopped the suspect with his firearm, fatally wounding the man and ending the crime spree.
It was the first fatal shooting of a Mendocino County deputy since April 1995, when Deputy Bob Davis was killed in a shootout in Covelo. At the time,
then-Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said there had been just five fatal shootings of deputies in the county since 1850.
Deputy DelFiorentino was a 26-year veteran of both the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the Fort Bragg Police Department.
“Deputy DelFiorentino was a devoted father, husband, son and brother,” said a press release from the police department in 2020, during the sixth anniversary. “Most of all, he was devoted to the Fort Bragg community; he dedicated his life to secure the safety of this community. It is not uncommon to hear members of our community speak about this great man and how he was such a likeable person.”
The Fort Bragg Police Department did not return a request for comment, but officers typically gather to lay wreaths at Del Fiorentino’s memorial signs on Highway 1, north of town.
From DelFiorentino’s obituary, which ran in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News, March 27, 2014:
“Born on May 28, 1965, in Napa, Calif., to Sharon Seigler and Henry Del Fiorentino, he was 48. Ricky graduated from Napa High School, Oklahoma University (on a wrestling scholarship), and Napa Valley College Police Academy. He was a Northern California wrestling champion and was inducted into the Napa High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2003, he was a Police Olympics gold medalist in the Greco Roman and Freestyle Wrestling events.
After graduating from the police academy in 1988, Ricky moved to Fort Bragg where he began his career as a sheriff’s deputy for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. He worked there for two years before transferring to the Fort Bragg Police Department in 1991. During his 10 years with the police department, he went from officer to detective. He was also a member of the SWAT team for both agencies.”
He was survived by his wife, and by his children, Hailey Elise, Timothy Harris, Parker Dahl Murray, Thomas Michael, and Lexie Rose, who was just six at the time.
2 Adam 60, 10-10. Thank you for your sacrifice, “Ricky D.”