Pensacola Police Chief Chip Simmons confirmed this week with IN that Officer Jerald Ard is not working the same shift location he was the night his cruiser hit and killed 17-year-old Victor Steen.
Rumors had surfaced that Ard was recently seen patrolling the Brownsville area. Simmons says that the only way he would be seen in that location is if he was asked to respond to an incident there.
Ard, a four-year veteran of the PPD, hit Steen on his bicycle the night of Oct. 3, 2009 as he fled on Cervantes Street in an abandoned bank parking lot across from the old Sluggo’s building. A coroner’s inquest requested by the State Attorney’s Office later found Ard to be at no fault in the death.
On an unrelated note: the ghost bike that was placed at the site of Steen’s death was removed last week.