PROVIDENCE -- A lawyer yesterday grilled one of the two police officers who mistakenly shot and killed Sgt. Cornel Young Jr., focusing in part on whether the white officer could tell that Young was black before he pulled the trigger.
Barry Scheck, who is representing Young's mother in the civil case in U.S. District Court, also questioned Carlos A. Saraiva about why he pulled up without his lights and sirens on, why he did not "take the lead" as the senior officer, and whether his rookie partner had put himself in a dangerous position just before the shooting began.
Lawyer Joseph F. Penza Jr., who is defending the City of Providence in the $20-million civil-rights lawsuit, began cross-examining Saraiva shortly before court adjourned for the day. Penza has said Young failed to heed the warnings of the two officers, who feared Young was about the shoot a man named Aldrin Diaz.
Young, 29, was gunned down as he tried to help the officers quell a fight outside a Providence diner on Jan. 28, 2000. Young, who was off-duty and wearing civilian clothes, pulled out his handgun, and Saraiva and Officer Michael Solitro III mistook him for a suspect.
Although the officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, some have questioned whether Saraiva and Solitro were quick to shoot because they saw a black man with a gun.
Scheck asked Saraiva whether he could tell that Young was black when Young emerged from Fidas restaurant. "Initially, when I first looked at him, I didn't know," Saraiva said.
Scheck pressed the officer about when he realized that Young was black.
"When I first looked at him, that wasn't the first thing I noticed. But certainly, I knew he was black in the course of events," Saraiva said. "I can't say I couldn't tell he was black. It just wasn't the first thing I noticed about him."
Scheck asked whether he could tell Young was black as Young moved forward. "Yes, by that point," Saraiva replied.
Scheck also pressed Saraiva about whether Young was silent when he emerged from the diner. "I didn't hear him say anything," Saraiva replied. Scheck asked whether it was possible that Young was saying something that Saraiva couldn't hear. "I can't be sure," Saraiva said.
The questioning went on for hours, progressing in fits and starts, with Penza raising objections and Judge Mary M. Lisi sustaining many of them. At points, the judge admonished Scheck for trying to introduce "rank hearsay," and at times, Scheck appeared flabbergasted by Lisi's rulings.
Scheck has suggested that Young would be alive today if Saraiva and Solitro had followed "fundamental police rules" such as turning on lights and sirens to announce their presence at the diner. He has said Diaz did not realize the police had arrived before he pointed a gun toward the diner -- starting a fatal chain of events.
Saraiva agreed that lights and sirens would have alerted Diaz and that an off-duty officer inside the diner would have heard the sirens if they'd been on.
But Saraiva said there was no policy requiring that he have the lights and sirens on. Scheck read an earlier statement in which Saraiva had said lights and sirens were required in such a situation.
Later, under questioning from Penza, Saraiva noted that the officers had pulled up in a marked police car and were in "full uniform."
Scheck also focused on the fact that Solitro was an "eight-day rookie," questioning whether Saraiva -- who had three years' experience -- should have taken the lead and given Solitro instructions. Saraiva said he was not Solitro's training officer.
"Did you believe," Scheck asked, "that your role as senior officer was to give guidance to Michael Solitro, the eight-day rookie, in arrest situations?"
"No, sir," Saraiva replied.
When the officers arrived at Fidas, they saw Diaz get into a Camaro in the parking lot and point a gun out the window, and the officers got out of their car. Saraiva said he took cover behind two utility poles and lost track of Solitro.
Scheck asked, "When two officers are at a scene and they don't know where each other is, that can lead to confusion?" Penza objected to that question, and the judge sustained the objection.
Scheck asked numerous questions about whether Solitro had "broken cover" from behind the police car and whether Saraiva had fired because he thought his partner was in a "no man's land" where he could be killed.
"I knew Mr. Diaz was in immediate danger," Saraiva said. "I had an idea where [Solitro] was, but I didn't know if he was in that level of immediate danger."
Scheck read from testimony that Saraiva gave to a grand jury in April 2000: "[Young] had a gun in his hand which he was pointing with one hand toward the direction of the operator [Diaz], who was just stepping out of the vehicle. And I know my partner was in this direction, so it appeared to me that the line of fire was not only the operator in immediate danger, but so was Mike. So I shot."
Scheck repeatedly asked whether Saraiva had seen his partner walking toward the rear of the Camaro. The answer was no.
Saraiva said Solitro later told him he'd been behind the police cruiser and "began to move toward his right" because "he didn't feel safe where he was." But Saraiva said Solitro never told him he walked toward the Camaro.
Saraiva said he yelled at Young two or three times to "drop the gun" before he fired. The officer said he did not say "police" before saying "drop the gun," and was never trained to do so.
Also yesterday, lawyers for Young's mother filed a motion objecting to the opening statement that Penza made on Wednesday, saying Penza had contended that Young caused his own death and that he introduced evidence about Providence police policies.
If that is going to be allowed in this phase of the trial, then the plaintiff should be allowed to present evidence about the Providence Police Department's "constitutionally inadequate training and policy," and the judge should give the jury special instructions, the motion states.
If both of those requests are rejected, the motion states, then a mistrial should be declared.
Lisi said she will rule on that motion this morning. Saraiva is expected to continue testifying today. The jury also is expected to hear from two men who were at the diner that night -- Joseph Hayman and Manuel Jiminian -- and from Officer Elizabeth Wajda.
DIGITAL EXTRA: Recap the shooting death of Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. and its aftermath, at:
http://projo.com/news/young/
