Deputy Superintendent Louis Joseph Sirgo, 48, was killed on January 7, 1973, during a rooftop sniper attack at a Howard Johnson’s Hotel on Loyola Avenue in New Orleans. A 21-year veteran of the New Orleans Police Department and a World War II U.S. Army veteran, Sirgo had risen to the department’s second-highest position and was leading a team up a darkened stairwell to rescue two officers trapped in an elevator when the sniper opened fire. He was struck and collapsed onto fellow officers.

The shooter, identified as Mark Essex, was firing from the hotel rooftop and from concealment in the stairwell. Sirgo was one of three officers killed at the hotel that day — Patrolman Philip Coleman and Patrolman Paul Persigo also died — and the rampage left nine people dead in total, including hotel guests. Essex was shot and killed by police during the siege; no arrests or trials followed because the sole suspect died at the scene.

Was anyone in New Orleans connected to the hotel or the department who can add detail about Sirgo’s actions that day or the efforts to rescue the trapped officers?