Detective Sgt. James L. Allen's Beretta Centurion has "a very heavy trigger-pull," as handguns go, Robert A. Hathaway said as he demonstrates the gun at the trial of Esteban Carpio.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 16, 2006

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The clicks were loud in a quiet courtroom yesterday.

Firearms expert Robert A. Hathaway worked the mechanisms of the semiautomatic .40-caliber Beretta Centurion pistol that used to nestle in the pancake holster on Detective Sgt. James L. Allen's belt.

Hathaway left the witness stand and stood in front of the jury. He snapped the slide back and forth. He pulled the trigger of the empty pistol.

Click. Snap. Click.

Jurors craned their necks to get a better look.

He held up the magazine that carried the cartridges that encased the bullets. He showed how the spring-loading magazine would be inserted into the handle of the gun, how a pull on the slide would move a cartridge into the firing chamber, how a pull on the trigger would do the same thing.

He pulled the trigger once. Click. He pulled the trigger three times. Click, click, click.

"It's a very heavy trigger-pull" as handguns go, Hathaway said; it takes seven to eight pounds of pressure to fire.

The devastation that can be wrought by the Beretta Centurion was the subject of the eighth day of the Superior Court trial of Esteban Carpio, 27, a Boston native and onetime barber.

He is charged with murdering Allen, a 50-year-old Providence policeman; he also faces three other charges.

Carpio somehow wrested Allen's pistol away from him -- either snatching the pistol from its holster or snatching the holster and pistol together -- and then shot him twice, according to the prosecution's case.

Providence patrol officers carry their Berettas in a so-called break-front holster, which is more secure than the pancake holster issued to other officers. With the latter, only a thumb-release strap holds the pistol snug.

Assistant Attorney General Paul F. Daly Jr., the prosecutor, rested the major portion of his case at midafternoon after calling to the stand Hathaway; Lawrence C. Pilcher, another firearms expert; and Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a former Rhode Island chief state medical examiner who did Allen's autopsy.

The trial is scheduled to resume Monday, with the defense expected to call psychiatrists; Carpio's girlfriend, Samein Soul Phin; and one or more Carpio relatives. Carpio has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, and the defense wants to prove that he was paranoid, detached from reality and in a state of mental collapse at the time of the alleged crimes.

After the defense presents its case, the prosecutor can mount a rebuttal.

Lead defense lawyer Robert L. Sheketoff had Hathaway dry-fire the pistol again -- as fast as he could -- during yesterday's cross-examination. According to trial testimony, Allen was killed in a conference room at police headquarters as three shots were fired, apparently in such rapid succession that another detective just outside the room said he perceived only a single shot.

Click-click-click.

One of the three bullets Carpio fired in the conference room lodged in the base of a table.

Another struck Allen just above his right eyebrow -- the muzzle of the pistol was only 3 inches to 7 inches away from his forehead -- went through his brain and lodged in his spinal column, Laposata and Pilcher testified.

Another struck Allen near his sternum, according to Laposata, then traveled through the aorta and lung and wound up in his back.

Carpio fired five more times in an adjoining office, shooting out a window in order to escape. When he dropped from the window to the ground outside, he left the pistol on a metal grate. There was one cartridge left in the chamber and one in the magazine.

gsmith@projo.com / (401) 277-7334