Prignano defends 'on-duty' policy

Providence's former police chief testifies in a testy appearance on the witness stand.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, November 17, 2005

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Former Providence Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr., in a combative appearance in federal court yesterday, defended the policy that led Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. to intervene in an armed confrontation in 2000.

Young, who was off-duty, died when he pulled his gun and tried to quell a disturbance outside Fidas restaurant in the Valley neighborhood. He was shot to death by two police colleagues who mistook him for a suspect.

In a policy that Prignano inherited but stoutly believes in, the Police Department required off-duty officers to carry their department sidearms and to take action when "time is of the essence to safeguard life or property." In shorthand, it is known as the "always-on-duty policy."

Officers should have their guns with them at all times in case they encounter a criminal with a weapon, especially a "bad guy" that they had "put away" in prison, Prignano contended.

Leisa Young, Cornel Young Jr.'s mother, is suing the City of Providence in U.S. District Court for violating her son's civil rights.

She claims that the department did not train Patrol Officer Michael Solitro III, one of the officers who shot her son, and other officers on how to handle confrontations between uniformed and off-duty officers.

Her lawyers have sought to portray the department as having been isolated and behind the times, compared to other law-enforcement agencies, for clinging to the always-on-duty policy.

Since Young was killed, the policy has been changed.
Prignano, who prided himself on being a streetwise policeman with a knack for burrowing into organized crime, served as chief from October 1995 to Jan. 31, 2001, when he left amid controversy.
Now retired, he came to the witness box draped in a blue sport coat and a white shirt. Due to his heart condition, the lawyers had agreed to limit the duration of Prignano's testimony for any single sitting.
Although Leisa Young's lawyers called him to the stand, he was not a friendly witness.

Even as lawyer Nicholas Brustin would pose questions, Prignano would plow ahead with extended answers, talking over Brustin. Their awkward Q & A appeared to be complicated by Prignano's being hard of hearing. For a while, they sparred over the meaning of the term "common sense."
Several times Judge William E. Smith Jr. admonished Prignano to give only "yes" or "no" answers when the questions called for that and, in general, to restrain himself.

Prignano insisted that he needed to give explanations.
"It looks like I'm a police chief who doesn't care. And that's not so," he declared.

As Prignano persisted in his assertive responses, the exasperated judge finally remarked, "Maybe we should just break for the day."

Among the points Prignano made: If he was still chief, he would still require off-duty officers to carry guns and intervene in crimes if they were able.

While he was chief, he believed that officers were trained about how to show their badges if they had to pull their guns and act while off-duty. Cornel Young Jr. has been faulted for not showing his badge before he was shot.

While he was chief, he should have instituted a general order specifically instructing officers how to show their badges when they pulled their guns while off-duty.

Prignano is scheduled to resume his testimony this morning.
The other witness yesterday was Sgt. Michael Harris, who was assistant director of the police training academy from which Solitro graduated.

His wife, former Sgt. Tonya King Harris, was in the audience as a gesture of support, as a lawyer for the city relentlessly challenged him with questions.

Harris said that in Solitro's academy, there was no training on how uniformed officers should handle themselves during confrontations with off-duty officers and vice versa.
Harris testified that the Rhode Island Minority Police Officers

Association, of which he was vice president, was quite concerned about minority officers disproportionately being targeted as suspects, and shot, by on-duty officers across the country. Young was black and the officers who killed him are white.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged, neither he nor the association proposed at the time that police training be improved regarding misidentification of off-duty officers.

"Obviously Jai would still be here" if the training was better, Harris said, using Cornel Young Jr.'s nickname.

Online at: http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20051117_young17.170dd86a.html