Defillo was scheduled to appear before NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas at a closed disciplinary hearing Friday.
Jenkins declined to elaborate on Defillo’s reasons for retiring, but thanked Serpas and Arlinda Westbrook, who heads the department’s Public Integrity Bureau, for their assistance.
“We’ve all worked together to come to this conclusion,” Jenkins said.
Defillo has worked for the department for 32 years. He will give a statement at 1 p.m. Friday at Jenkins’ office.
Remi Braden, the NOPD’s spokeswoman, said late Thursday afternoon that the department was unable to confirm Defillo’s retirement. The agency had yet to receive official notice of his departure.
Documents obtained by The Times-Picayune show that Defillo, one of the department’s most well-known and visible officers, was made aware in June 2008 that NOPD officers might have played a role in the killing of Glover and a subsequent cover-up.
That was six months before anything about Glover’s death was published in the news media, thus prompting the federal probe that resulted in the convictions of two officers.
At the end of 2008, the NOPD, responding to an initial report in The Nation magazine, announced it had not received “any complaints or information to substantiate any of the allegations” in the article.
The NOPD’s news release asked citizens with information on the matter to call Defillo.