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The
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2.13.2000 00:02:02
Rookie patrolman struggles with reality of shooting brother officer
 Officer Michael Solitro said he agreed to be interviewed in hopes of beginning a long healing process for everyone touched by the tragedy of Cornel Young Jr.'s death. ``Something good better come out of this. Something good
has
to come out of it.''
By W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI, JONATHAN D. ROCKOFF and MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writers
Tears come easily to Michael Solitro these days.
One moment he smiles at the thoughts of happier times: the day, in high school, when he asked his wife out on their first date; the day, just over a year ago, that he learned he would be attending the police academy; and the night, last month, that his 6-year-old son watched him put on his Providence police uniform for the first time.
Then Solitro's face dissolves at the memory of the early morning hours of Friday, Jan. 28.
``You've got to back each other up,'' he said. ``The most important thing at the end of your shift is the person you're working with . . . Sometimes someone gets hurt. It's part of the job. But you don't expect something like this to happen. It's not supposed to be this way. It's not.''
At 1:43 a.m., on Solitro's eighth night on the job, the rookie officer and his partner, Carlos Saraiva, answered a call of a disturbance -- ``two girls fighting'' -- at Fidas Restaurant, an all-night diner and frequent trouble spot on Valley Street.
They sped to the scene and saw a man outside waving a gun.
The officers leaped out of their patrol car and drew their guns.
Within moments, the two white officers shot and killed a black off-duty officer who, police pistol in hand, had emerged from the diner.
The death of Sgt. Cornel Young Jr., son of the highest-ranking black officer in the Providence Police Department, has ignited a controversy about race, guns and the police.
Several leaders in the city's minority community have called for an independent, outside investigation of Young's shooting. Many believe that racism is responsible for his death.
Some have demanded that Solitro and Saraiva be fired and charged with murder.
The community group DARE -- Direct Action for Rights and Equality -- charges that Saraiva and Solitro have been involved in racially motivated acts in the past: Saraiva in a controversial police shooting last fall, Solitro in a fight with a black off-duty Providence officer. A DARE flier says Solitro used a racial epithet during his fight with the black officer.
The police said the shooting last fall was in self-defense, and the Rhode Island attorney general's office cleared Saraiva of any wrongdoing.
Solitro's lawyer said that the fight occurred in a bar 11 years ago, after the off-duty officer insulted Solitro's girlfriend, and that Solitro did not use a racial epithet.
Solitro pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor assault charge. There is no reference to race in the police report.
Solitro and Saraiva have been silent, spending most of their time in seclusion and in counseling, according to friends and colleagues. They are out of work indefinitely, on sick leave.
On Friday, two weeks after the day of the shooting, Solitro sat for a 21/2-hour interview with The Providence Journal, his first public comments about Young's death.
The interview was conducted in the Providence office of the police union's lawyer, Joseph J. Rodio.
Solitro, a tall, rugged man in his early 30s, with close-cropped, black, curly hair, looked haggard, his eyes red and puffy.
He wore a black suit, white shirt and gray-print tie. He carried his Providence police hat into the office and kept it nearby throughout the interview.
Saraiva, who graduated from the police academy with Young in 1997, declined through his lawyer to be interviewed. According to a family friend, he sits at home for hours, staring out the window.
Solitro said he never met Cornel Young Jr.
``It hurts. It hurts a lot,'' he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. ``I wish it were me laying in the ground right now. I really wish it was me. This isn't happening. You see the city tearing apart over this. Nobody wins. There are no winners here.''
Solitro said he agreed to be interviewed in hopes of beginning a long healing process for everyone touched by this tragedy.
``Something good better come out of this. Something good
has
to come out of it.''
THE JOB
They were partners.
Michael Solitro and Carlos Saraiva had known one another for just about a week, but they shared a badge, a brotherhood and a patrol car bearing the Providence police motto:
Always Protect.
For seven nights in January, while the city slept and the mercury hovered near zero, Solitro and Saraiva patrolled the quiet streets around the city's Olneyville section.
They tagged illegally parked cars, kept an eye out for fires, and counted ``lights and depressions'' -- burnt-out street lights and potholes in need of repair.
As they drove through the night, Solitro, the rookie, sought pointers from Saraiva, the three-year veteran. Their faces lit by the dashboard's glow, they talked about the force and family.
The partners were high-school drop-outs, married men, two guys in their early 30s who had come late to wear the uniform they had dreamed of since childhood.
Saraiva would ask Solitro if he wanted to drive. Solitro, fearful of an accident his first week on the job, preferred to take it slow.
``Carlos, I'm in no rush,'' Solitro would say. ``I've got 20 years to do it.''
THE FATHER
Michael Solitro III was born in 1967 to a family of Italian-American bakers. His father and three of his uncles own Solitro's Bakery, in Cranston.
Solitro grew up on Federal Hill with five sisters. The only boy, he was doted on. There was never a moment without food and clean clothes.
Solitro played stickball with friends behind a nearby school. He played youth baseball on a team named after an Atwells Avenue meat market.
The boys in the neighborhood often congregated on Solitro's front steps. Solitro would watch the police drive by, and he hoped to become one of them one day.
``All I remember from childhood was the brown uniforms and the brown cars,'' he said. ``As a child, you're like, `Wow.' ''
Solitro attended Catholic elementary schools in Providence and Cranston.
Often, he helped his father in the back of the bakery, cleaning up. After school, he would go to the bakery to eat and help out.
In tenth grade at Cranston High School West, he met his childhood sweetheart, now his wife.
Solitro dropped out of high school a few months before graduation -- he didn't like it -- but he quickly earned an equivalency diploma.
He took college courses and worked at the bakery. For about a year, he ran his own bakery and deli, The Bread Factory, in downtown East Greenwich.
With short curly hair and a narrow face, Solitro is tall and trim, solidly built.
At a downtown nightclub in 1989, according to a police report, Solitro struck an off-duty Providence police officer, Gregorio Small, who is now a juvenile detective.
According to the report, Solitro pushed Small, then threatened him and finally punched him in the head.
Small is black. In a flier posted around the city since Young's shooting, DARE, the community group, said Solitro ``is under investigation for getting into a fight with a fellow police officer,'' and using a racial epithet.
Solitro's lawyer, Joseph Rodio, said that DARE's information is wrong; the incident happened 11 years ago, and is not under investigation and Solitro denies using a racial slur.
The police report does not mention a racial epithet.
Small declined comment last week.
Solitro pleaded no contest to simple assault, and the charge was filed with no fines. In 1990, his record was expunged.
From 1990 to 1999, Solitro worked at the Rhode Island Training School, in Cranston, guarding juvenile offenders. An uncle and a cousin had preceded him as prison guards.
Solitro liked the work at the Training School. He liked talking to the teenagers and taking them on field trips. They were a troubled crew, and he wanted to help them. He bonded with a few of the residents and even found one a job at his father-in-law's vending machine business.
Solitro also befriended Farid Ansari, a former New York City police officer who was a fellow guard. Solitro invited Ansari to join his friends on opening-day fishing trips.
``He's taking a bum rap as far as the racial thing,'' said Ansari, who is black. ``I never got that from Mike.''
At the Training School, Solitro said he once faced a hearing for destroying a telephone. Solitro said a resident confessed, and he was absolved.
Another time, Solitro said he accidentally injured a resident while breaking up a fight between the boy and another youth.
Solitro said he was briefly suspended. Training School officials declined comment, citing the attorney general's investigation into Young's death.
Working at the Training School grew old; Solitro said he felt he wasn't helping the teenagers avoid trouble, merely supervising them after they were caught.
On weekends, he waited tables at weddings at the Alpine Country Club, in Cranston, where the joyousness buoyed his spirits.
Around 1996, he said he first applied to the Providence Police Department. He did not receive word that he would join the force until late 1998.
When the letter from City Hall arrived in the mail, he said, ``It was big. It was like I was getting released from jail.''
On Jan. 9, 1999 -- Solitro remembers the date -- he began training at the Providence Police Academy.
``It felt good to sit in that seat. I mean, you're finally there. You finally made it, but you still have a long way to go,'' he said.
He awoke each weekday at 4:30 a.m. and returned home at 6:30 p.m. After spending time with his family, he would press his uniform and study late into the night.
It was hard work, for minimum wage. But Solitro enjoyed it. He became close with the other married recruits. He felt a sense of brotherhood.
``The biggest thing: you have to look out for each other,'' he said. ``You have to back each other up.''
Solitro wanted to make sure he passed the academy's physical fitness test, so he started lifting weights at the Cranston YMCA.
There, he met Wilbur W. Jennings, a bodybuilder, who is the deputy superintendent at Providence's Department of Public Works. Jennings showed Solitro how to lift correctly. Several times a week for six months, Solitro lifted everything Jennings did, no matter how hard it was.
Solitro called Jennings ``General.'' When Jennings announced that his wife was pregnant, he remembered, Solitro gave him a hug.
``I'm black,'' Jennings said. ``He treated me like I was him.''
For three weeks at the end of his police training, Solitro patrolled the city with a full-fledged officer. His first day on the streets was the Fourth of July.
They broke up arguments and chased a teenager who stole a car. They arrested a man who had stolen $20 and a backpack at gunpoint.
For that arrest, Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. sent Solitro a fancy letter commending his work.
Solitro put the letter on his refrigerator, next to his children's artwork.
Last August, Solitro and 18 other recruits graduated from the academy. Unemployed, Solitro waited eagerly to begin work.
On Friday, Jan. 14, Solitro was sworn in to the department. Two nights later, he started work.
Before his first shift, Solitro's 6-year-old son stayed up late so he could watch his father put on a Providence police uniform.
``It was nice getting dressed in front of my son,'' he said. ``The only thing I wouldn't let him see was the weapon.''
At the station, Solitro sat down with the shift's supervisors. His supervisor said Solitro was excited to finally embark on his dream job.
Normally, Solitro would have been assigned a patrol car of his own. But due to a shortage of radios, he was assigned to ride with one of the more experienced officers on the overnight shift, Patrolman Carlos Saraiva.
THE SON-IN-LAW
Carlos A. Saraiva was born in Fall River in 1969. He grew up on Concord Street in Providence, a dreary block of older tenement houses near the North Burial Ground.
His parents, Portuguese immigrants who worked in local factories, bought a two-family house and raised eight children, four boys and four girls.
The street was tough, recalled neighbor Pauline Horne, and the police would be there every night. Some of the local children became criminals, dealing drugs and stealing cars.
Saraiva's older brother Angelo was arrested four times in the 1990s, twice on drug charges. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to drug charges and to eluding police in North Providence after leading them on a car chase.
Carlos, or ``Charlie'' as friends called him, was the third youngest in the family. He was small, quiet and polite, said Horne -- ``a sweetheart.''
Saraiva attended Hope High School, but dropped out. Horne and her husband, George, say that Saraiva was having some problems with two boys, one white, one Puerto Rican, and that there had been ``altercations.''
``Instead of fighting, he wanted to quit,'' said George Horne.
Saraiva later went back to school, earning his high-school equivalency diploma from the Community College of Rhode Island in 1991. He also went to night school at the University of Rhode Island for a year and worked in the car business.
He detailed, painted and buffed cars at Providence Auto Body, then at the Norwood Motor Group in Warwick. He spent about six years at Norwood, working his way up to an assistant manager, selling used cars.
Saraiva also began dating the boss's daughter, whom he later married. Their wedding reception was at Rosecliff mansion in Newport.
Although his future was secure, Saraiva wasn't content to remain the boss's son-in-law, according to friends. He wanted to make his own way, and to pursue his childhood dream.
``He said he wanted to be a police officer, but he didn't know if he could do it,'' said Horne.
Saraiva sought advice from Keith Woodbine, a police officer in Jamestown.
``He'd ask, `What's it like? What's it like?' '' said Woodbine. ``He said he'd like to do it, but he was 5-foot-8 and slender, so he figured he didn't fit the profile.''
In December 1996, Saraiva entered the Providence Police Academy. His friends at the car dealership threw him a going-away party, complete with a cake with tiny police cars on top.
On May 25, 1997, Saraiva was sworn in as a Providence police officer.
He settled into a job on the overnight shift, lonely nights punctuated by random violence: barroom fights, shootings and stabbings, domestic disputes.
``It made me very proud to see him in his uniform,'' said Pauline Horne. ``I knew a lot of other kids in the neighborhood who turned out bad. But he was my Officer Charlie.''
In his first two-plus years on the beat, Saraiva worked quietly, attracting little public attention.
That all changed one night last September, when Saraiva fired his gun for the first time while on duty.
THE 30-30
It was about 2 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 18, 1999.
Saraiva was working alone. The city's bars had closed, and Saraiva was trying to disperse the crowd outside the 30-30 Club on Westminster Street.
There was a confrontation between Saraiva and a man in the crowd, Rafael Nunez. When it was over, Saraiva had been beaten about the face, and Nunez, who was unarmed, had been shot twice in the legs by the officer.
Several witnesses gave the police different stories.
All agree that Saraiva had sprayed pepper gas at another man outside the 30-30 Club. The man, a friend of Nunez, had been slow to leave.
Nunez and several other witnesses said that Saraiva had been too aggressive. Saraiva, in his statement, said that the man had approached him ``in a threatening manner.''
Later, as Saraiva sat in his cruiser outside the club, Nunez and his girlfriend, Jasmin Tejada, approached the passenger side of the police car to ask Saraiva for his badge number. Tejada said that they were upset over Saraiva's use of pepper spray.
Saraiva got out of his car and walked around the back of the cruiser, according to various witness statements.
Saraiva said he did so because Nunez refused to stop leaning on the police car; Nunez and Tejada said that Saraiva seemed angry at them for requesting his badge number.
Saraiva walked up to Nunez. Tejada stepped between them. They disagree about what happened next.
Tejada said that Saraiva pushed her to the ground, then pulled out his gun and started shooting. She said that she never saw anyone hit Saraiva.
Saraiva said that Nunez finally stepped away from the cruiser. Saraiva said that he then turned around to walk back to the car and Nunez attacked him from behind.
``Before I could turn to defend myself I was immediately hit several more times about the head and face,'' said Saraiva, in his statement. ``I was knocked to the ground and was dazed and felt like I was going to lose consciousness.''
Saraiva said that he staggered to his feet and saw ``at least three or four men coming towards me in a threatening manner,'' led by Nunez.
``I didn't think I could fight in my condition,'' said Saraiva. ``I drew my service weapon as I attempted to back away from them. They continued to advance towards me even though I had my weapon drawn and pointed in their direction. I fired two or three rounds and fired low in an attempt to stop them from attacking me further.''
Two women who were sitting in their car, eating sandwiches from a street vendor, said that they saw Nunez hit Saraiva from behind, and Saraiva subsequently draw his gun and begin firing.
Another man, driving down Westminster Street, said that he saw a police officer ``get knocked back'' into the road by a man who then charged him, head down. At that point, the man said, Saraiva pulled his gun and began shooting.
Other witnesses also gave statements, including Nunez's two sisters, a food vendor and the disc jockey from the 30-30 Club.
Nunez, who was on probation for a 1995 felony drug conviction, was charged with assaulting a police officer, a case that is still pending. At the hospital, he told detectives that he had hit Saraiva because he didn't like the way the officer had been acting, according to court records.
According to a police report, Nunez said that he thought Saraiva would hit him with his nightstick, not shoot him.
Saraiva was placed on desk duty pending a review by the attorney general's office, which is routine in police shootings. A community group that has long protested police brutality, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, called the shooting unwarranted and demanded punishment.
Since the shooting of Cornel Young Jr., DARE and several advocacy groups have called for an independent investigation that would also probe the Nunez shooting. The Police Department has also been criticized for allowing Saraiva back on the street. Nunez, whose aunt works for DARE, has appeared at various public rallies to protest Young's shooting.
The police said that the attorney general's office cleared Saraiva of any wrongdoing.
Providence Police Sgt. Luis F. SanLucas, who oversaw Saraiva when he was on desk duty after the Nunez shooting, said he commended Saraiva for his judgment.
``I told him he showed good judgment by shooting [Nunez] once in each leg,'' said SanLucas, vice president of the Rhode Island Hispanic Officers Association. ``Some guys would have lost it and emptied their clip. He said he aimed at their feet, which shows control.''
Saraiva told SanLucas that he was eager to get back on the street. A month or so after the shooting, he was reinstated.
THE NIGHT
The night of Jan. 27, 2000, began the same way most tours do on the Police Department's late shift: in a warehouse in a business park.
At 11 p.m. that freezing Thursday, Solitro and Saraiva filed into the squad room at the Dupont Street station and slumped into plastic seats.
Solitro, the tall rookie, sat toward the front. Saraiva, the slight veteran, was behind him, to the left.
A sergeant stood behind a lectern and gave the 15 officers in the room their assignments. He reviewed the major crimes on everyone's beats, and reminded them to wear their bulletproof vests.
Within 15 minutes, the sergeant sent them out into the night with some final words of advice.
``Back each other up.''
The night was slow. According to police records, Solitro and Saraiva received just one early call. At 11:19, they were dispatched to a false alarm at a business in Olneyville Square.
For the next two hours, Solitro and Saraiva cruised the neighborhoods, past the tenements, warehouses and storefronts. Around 1 a.m., they were on heightened alert as the city's bars and nightclubs began to empty.
At 1:43 a.m., the officers received a report of a disturbance at Fidas Restaurant: there were women fighting both inside and outside the diner near the corner of Valley Street and Atwells Avenue.
On Friday, Solitro's lawyer provided a copy of his witness statement to The Providence Journal.
Solitro, in the statement, said that as he and Saraiva approached Fidas, he saw a ``white male subject'' running to get into a silver Camaro parked in front. As they got closer, Solitro said, he saw the man, then sitting in the Camaro, waving a gun out the driver's window.
Saraiva, who was driving, pulled into the parking lot and blocked in the Camaro.
Solitro and Saraiva both burst from the cruiser with their guns drawn.
Solitro took a position behind the Camaro; Saraiva moved behind two telephone poles.
Both men said they repeatedly ordered the driver to ``drop the weapon.''
Solitro, in his police statement, said:
``I looked over to where Ptlm Saraiva was standing because he was now yelling `drop the weapon, drop the weapon, drop the weapon,' and at this time I saw a black male subject walking towards us by the driver's side of the Camaro.
``Now I yell at the black male subject to drop his weapon several times, actually both of us are yelling to the black male subject to drop his weapon. The subject not responding to our commands to drop his weapon and Ptlm Saraiva fired at the subject and almost at the same time I fired my weapon at the subject.
``I fired my service weapon I don't know how many times, the subject drops to the ground and at this point the white male subject is now coming out of the Camaro and I take him at gun point down to the ground.''
Other police officers quickly arrived. The ``white male subject,'' Aldrin Diaz, was handcuffed and put in the rear of Saraiva's and Solitro's cruiser.
Solitro said in his statement that he then went inside Fidas with other officers, ``and we put everybody in the restaurant on the floor at gun point.''
It was only after the area was secured, Solitro said, ``that I holstered my weapon, and I went back outside and it was at this time that I learned that the black male subject was one of us a cop.''
THE IDENTIFICATION
Lt. Timothy Lee, the senior officer on duty in the city, was walking into police headquarters at LaSalle Square when his radio squawked, ``Shots fired!'' He continued in the station and put his coffee on the desk. ``We have a man down!'' barked a voice on the radio.
Lee, a barrel-chested man with a crew cut, burst out of the station and jumped into his cruiser. With his lights and siren blaring, Lee sped west on Atwells Avenue, arriving at the scene a mile away in about a minute.
Lee immediately took charge. He made sure that the suspects and witnesses were separated and placed in cruisers.
All Lee knew was that shots had been fired and that someone had been hit. He knelt down about eight inches from the man and saw that he was bleeding from his forehead, nose and mouth.
Lee thought to himself, ``He's in pretty bad shape.''
He didn't recognize the victim. He said he rose and continued directing the officers at the scene. Then he turned back to the victim for a closer look. A patrolman was next to him.
``That may be Cornel,'' said Lee. ``Let's check him for an i.d.''
The patrolman reached into the man's pocket and pulled out a black leather billfold. Embossed in gold were the words ``Providence Police Department.''
Inside, were a badge and a photograph.
``It's a cop!'' the patrolman yelled. ``It's a cop!''
Lee returned to his cruiser and radioed to headquarters. He told the desk sergeant to contact the chief of police, Col. Urbano Prignano, and other top department officials.
As Lee got out of his cruiser, Saraiva approached him.
``I shot him,'' said Saraiva. ``I didn't know who he was.''
``Did what?'' said Lee in disbelief.
Lee said Saraiva appeared as if he were in shock. Lee said he took away Saraiva's .40-caliber Beretta handgun, which Saraiva had returned to his holster.
Normally, an officer involved in a shooting turns in the gun at the police station. Lee said he wasn't taking any chances.
``I made a decision to seize the weapon because of the emotional nature of the shooting,'' he said.
Saraiva was brought back to the police station in a cruiser.
Lee was still unaware that Solitro also had been involved in the shooting. Another officer ordered Solitro to follow the ambulance carrying Young to Rhode Island Hospital.
On his way back to police headquarters, Lee learned that Solitro also had fired at Young. Outside the station, Lee saw Solitro. The lieutenant asked Solitro for his handgun.
THE GUNS
The police say that Cornel Young Jr., 29, was off duty that night, and had stopped by Fidas to pick up a steak sandwich, when a fight broke out between two women.
Witnesses say that one of the women, Christa Calder, shouted to her boyfriend, Aldrin Diaz, to ``get the gun.'' Diaz ran outside to the Camaro, at which point Solitro and Saraiva arrived and ordered him to drop his gun, the police say.
Meanwhile, witnesses inside the diner say that Young had drawn his gun and raced out of the diner, attempting to quell the disturbance.
It is unclear whether Young identified himself as a police officer. One witness said that he heard Young do so, the police said. But 16 others did not.
The police say that Solitro and Saraiva never heard Young identify himself as a police officer. Nor, the police say, did the two officers recognize Young, who was wearing a black baseball cap over a wool ski cap, and a dark-colored coat.
Figures close to the investigation have told The Journal that Saraiva thought his partner, Solitro, was in Young's line of fire.
Solitro said that he did not see Young emerge from the diner. According to his statement, Solitro first observed Young outside, near the Camaro, ``walking towards us. He's not responded to our commands to drop his weapon and he's still coming at us, that's when I fired.''
The police have said that each officer fired three shots. Joseph Rodio, Solitro's lawyer, said that Providence police are trained to fire in three-shot bursts. Police have not said whose shots struck Young.
Near the end of his statement, a detective asked if anyone had mentioned the name of the dead police officer to him.
``I'm new on the job and only know those officers I actually have served with,'' answered Solitro.
THE REALITY
On Friday afternoon, Michael Solitro strode into the conference room of a downtown Providence law office and sat down across a table from three reporters.
He set his police hat upside-down on the table in front of him, and drew a deep breath.
His lawyer, Joseph Rodio, placed a box of Kleenex and a glass of Coca-Cola in front of him.
Rodio explained the ground rules. Because of the pending grand-jury investigation, Solitro would not discuss the events at Fidas.
``I don't want to relive that night,'' added Solitro.
At one point, he was asked to recall the day that he learned he would become a Providence police officer.
He smiled, then the smile quickly faded and his jaw muscles clenched as he fought for control. He clutched at a Kleenex, began to sob, then left the room. He returned several minutes later.
``I can't believe this is happening,'' he said, once the interview had resumed. ``This is all a nightmare. But I have to face reality. The reality is that I'm talking to you. The community has a right to know what I'm all about.''
He said he wasn't ready to be a cop when he was 21 years old, that he is more mature now that he has a family.
``You know, I have two kids and a wife to go home to. That's the most important thing. To go home.
``Major Young . . . he doesn't have his son. I've got my own son and daughter. I can't imagine. I think about it. God forbid something should happen to one of my kids. What would I do?''
Only recently, before the Young shooting, two prominent black Providence officers, Sgt. Tonya King and Sgt. Michael Harris -- Solitro's academy instructor -- had ordered their wedding cake from Solitro's father's bakery.
Now, King and Harris, as leaders of the Rhode Island Minority Police Association, have demanded an independent outside investigation of Solitro's and Saraiva's actions.
Meanwhile, according to a Saraiva family friend, Saraiva's elderly Portuguese mother, who speaks broken English, has received crank calls asking to speak to ``the cop killer.''
Solitro mentions the public controversy that has swirled about Young's shooting, how it has become a lightning rod for a host of racial concerns.
``You try to listen to everyone, information from all these different groups,'' he said. ``You just wish you had a chance for them to just know me or Carlos.
``DARE, the NAACP, the Ministers' Alliance -- they all have their right to their views about different things. And there are issues. I don't deny that. I just hope that I can sit down and say, `This is who I am.' ''
Rising at the end of the interview, the officer fidgeted with his police cap.
Inside, in a plastic sleeve, beneath a sheet of radio-call signals and a laminated prayer to St. Michael, patron saint of police officers, was a black-and-white photograph of Sgt. Steven Shaw, prior to Young the last Providence officer to die in the line of duty.
``Three families. Three families whose lives are forever changed,'' said Solitro. ``It will be a long road, but hopefully we will meet down the end of this, God willing.''
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