PROVIDENCE -- Charles Johnson hadn't seen Carlos Pacheco in
three years until they happened to run into each other at work nearly
two weeks ago.
It was June 1, a Saturday, the day that Johnson works as a driver at The
Providence Journal's Production Facility.Pacheco, a Journal employee for
20 years, also was a production worker at the plant.
They passed each other in the building and waved, Johnson remembered.
Pacheco looked different. Not bad, he said, "just not like the Carlos I
knew." He'd lost weight and he was wearing small, granny glasses,
Johnson said.
"He didn't look like trouble," Johnson said.
Last Saturday morning, they met again.
Just before 9:30, Johnson drove his red pickup into the plant lot at 210
Kinsley Ave. He parked about 50 yards from the front door.
Johnson's shift would start in a half hour. He put on his cell phone
headset and called a friend to make plans for a weekend visit to
Philadelphia.
Johnson was on the phone when he saw Pacheco walking across the parking
lot toward him. Pacheco came up to his window and stood about a foot
away, listening to Johnson's conversation.
" 'Who're you talking to?' " Pacheco asked him.
"A friend," Johnson replied.
Pacheco seemed impatient, waiting for Johnson to get off the phone. "Can
I call you back?" Johnson said to his friend, then hung up.
Pacheco stood there, his hands in his front pockets.
He spoke calmly.
" 'Have I ever done anything to you?' " he asked Johnson.
"No," Johnson replied.
" 'Have you ever done anything to me?' " Pacheco asked.
"Not that I can recall," Johnson answered.
" 'Well, it's all over today,' " Pacheco said.
Pacheco pulled out a gun. Johnson screamed. Pacheco shot him.
Johnson blacked out. He'd been shot in the face. The bullet had gone
through his right cheek. When he came to, he said, he could see people
nearby, but no one noticed him. He was slumped over, bleeding, and
mumbling the name of his 3-year-old daughter, Kolu, over and over.
He had little feeling in his left hand, not enough to raise it, he said.
He moved his left knee up under his hand so he could reach the door
handle and push it open.
Just then, Johnson's good friend and Journal coworker Mark Colavita
pulled into the lot, and parked right beside his truck. Colavita saw
Johnson bleeding and screamed.
Johnson tried to say what happened. Blood stained the front of his
shirt. Colavita, he said, was shouting at him, " 'Stay with me, Charlie!
You'll be all right! Stay with me!' "
Colavita called Johnson's wife, Jacqueline. " 'Do not panic!' " Johnson
heard him yell into the phone. " 'Charlie's been shot. Go over to the
hospital.' "
As Johnson sat up, he saw police officers filling the parking lot, guns
drawn, like a massive SWAT team. Rescuers were surrounding him.
Then, he saw the lights of the ambulance, he said, and he realized he
was alive.
Johnson didn't find out until the next day that his supervisor, Robert
Benetti, 38, and another coworker, Matthew Fandetti, 29, were dead.
Pacheco had shot them both -- killing Benetti at The Journal and
Fandetti in the man's Warwick home -- and then killing himself.
Pacheco's body was found later that morning in a burning car in Warwick.
JOHNSON SHIFTED in a bed at Rhode Island Hospital yesterday afternoon,
his body aching, his mind pained with the memories of Saturday and his
lost friends.
His face was swollen, especially his right cheek, which had a gash from
Pacheco's bullet. He'd been released from the hospital on Sunday
afternoon, but returned yesterday because he was having trouble
breathing. He was staying overnight for observation and hoped to return
home today.
He spoke in a melodic accent from his native Liberia, where he'd fled
his country's violent civil war in 1990, emigrating to the United
States. He's the eighth son in a family of 11 brothers and sisters,
who've been calling and caring for him since the shooting.
Johnson has endured tragedy before. His father and an uncle died in a
plane crash in Sudan in 1993. He was tied up and beaten by seven men
during Liberia's violent unrest more than a decade ago.
"To be alive, it's a blessing, but it's painful because my friends are
gone," Johnson said.
Benetti, whom he called Bobby, was his floor supervisor since he started
working at The Journal nine years ago. Benetti was kind and caring,
Johnson said, and "would never hurt anybody."
And Fandetti was a good man, who was studying heating and refrigeration
at the New England Institute of Technology. Fandetti's fiancée, Lisa
DeCiantis, also works for The Journal. They all knew each other well,
Johnson said. Everyone got along.
"My heart goes out to the families, and to the rest of The Journal
family," Johnson said. "We just have to keep praying."
Johnson thanks his family and friends. He thanks the trauma care crew at
Rhode Island Hospital, which nursed him back from critical condition to
stable condition in a matter of hours. He thanks the Providence police
for arriving so quickly. He sends his prayers to The Journal.
"I just want to say 'Hi' to everybody at The Journal. If you can pray,
keep me in your prayers," Johnson said.
He gives his condolences to the families of Benetti and Fandetti -- and
to the family of Pacheco.
"I forgive him. I don't hold anything against him," Johnson said. "Every
time I pray, I'll pray for his soul."
He doesn't understand what happened, why Pacheco would shoot him and
kill Benetti and Fandetti. "I can't make any sense of it," Johnson said.
When he recovers, Johnson said, he's coming back to work at The Journal.
That's home. That's where his friends are. That's the place he's worked
for nine years, he said, "a happy place."
He's the operations manager for Cleanscape, a recycling company in
Providence, but he always kept his job at The Journal, working
Saturdays. He's not leaving, not even after the shooting.
"I don't know that there's anything that could have prevented this,"
Johnson said.
He's thinking about the first day he'll return to work. He's nervous.
The memories are painful.
"But I can't wait to come back there soon," he added. "It's a family.
The Journal is a little family."
