Witness contradicts defense's story in trial of Pawtucket cop who shot teen – what was said
WARWICK – A lawyer for Daniel Dolan, the Pawtucket police officer charged with unjustly shooting a teen in 2021 while off duty, tried again and again in court on Friday to persuade a witness to alter his testimony in a manner more favorable to his client.
James Linden wouldn’t budge.
“I know what I saw,” insisted Linden, who drove by the roadside encounter as it unfolded. “I remember what I saw.”
And the man he saw with a pistol was standing to the side of that black car “creeping” along the shoulder of Nooseneck Road in West Greenwich.
He definitely was not standing in front of it, Linden testified before a Superior Court jury.
“No, I saw him come around to the side of that car, look in the [driver’s door] window, and that’s when I saw him reach” for his pistol, Linden said. “I saw him pull it out and point it.” He was only an “arm’s length” away from that driver’s side window.
More from the Dolan trial:Opening statements in Dolan trial offer different explanations for teen shooting
The Daniel Dolan trial so far
Dolan, 40, faces three felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon and a fourth count of discharging a gun while committing a crime. He’s currently suspended from the Pawtucket Police Department without pay.
Linden testified he was passing by the Wicked Good Pizza parking lot on the evening of June 23, 2021, when he saw a man, later identified as Dolan, trying to get a car to stop as it backed out quickly from the lot.
The car, driven by Dominic Vincent, now 20, had just blown past Dolan on Interstate 95 traveling at more than 100 mph.
In opening statements Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Guglielmo said “anger got hold of” Dolan “and he couldn't let it go.”
More on Dolan:Lawyer for cop charged in shooting: He was trying to 'preserve life'
Rather than continue home to Coventry, Guglielmo said Dolan took matters into his own hands, resulting in his shooting and wounding Vincent, then 18, without cause when the teen wouldn’t stop for him.
Vincent testified Wednesday that neither he nor his two friends in the car thought Dolan was a police officer as he approached their car, and they did think the badge he waved could have been a fake. They saw him as an agitated stranger they wanted to get away from, Vincent testified.
But defense lawyer Michael Colucci said Vincent and his friends were “not being truthful about that.”
He said Vincent attempted to leave the pizzeria parking lot quickly as Dolan pulled up in his flatbed pickup truck because “they knew it had something to do with the highway,” and how fast they had been traveling.
Colucci described Dolan as a sworn public servant with a duty to protect the community who wanted to “talk” to the driver of the speeding car. He said Dolan “shot only in self-defense" as Vincent attempted to “run him down.”
Witness contradicts the defense's story
During testimony Friday, Linden said he slowed down on Nooseneck Road as he watched the black Audi backing out of the pizzeria and a man with “an upset face” pursuing it on foot. He said he thought at first it was the owner of the pizzeria and something had transpired inside.
He said he saw the man put his hands on the hood of Vincent’s Audi as it became parallel with the road.
“It almost looked like the car was pushing into him,” Linden testified, but then the man moved to the driver’s side of the car and pulled out his gun.
“Once he got off to the side of the car,” Linden said, “that’s when he reached.”
Linden said he was just passing the car when Dolan fired.
The trial resumes Monday.
Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Daniel Dolan trial witness says cop did not shoot teen in self defense
