CARBONDALE -- We are learning more about the Carbondale police officer who shot and killed a man while off duty Tuesday night. We are also learning more about how the shooting unfolded.
The attorney for that Carbondale policeman says Officer Frank Schulze has been cooperating with investigators since the shots were fired Tuesday night. It will ultimately be up to state police and the Lackawanna County district attorney's office to decide, but Schulze's attorney says the shooting was justified.
State police and the Lackawanna County District Attorney's Office are working to piece together, minute by minute, what led to the shooting death of Joseph Molinaro, 34, of Carbondale.
His girlfriend says they were walking to a friend's house Tuesday night when Molinaro was shot twice on Chestnut Avenue in Carbondale.
The shooter was an off-duty Carbondale cop.
Officer Schulze, 25, started with Carbondale police in 2014, and city officials say he has a clean record. Since the shooting Tuesday, he's been placed on administrative leave.
"This isn't easy for anyone who is put in a position where they feel justified in having to take another life. I can't imagine what he truly is feeling," said Schulze's attorney Corey Kolcharno.
No charges have been filed yet. Investigators first need to determine if the shooting was justified.
Kolcharno tells us the incident did not start where it ended on Chestnut Avenue. It began in front of Officer Schulze's apartment on a different street. Schulze says he heard a woman screaming and when he went outside was confronted by Molinaro.
"He felt compelled to not only protect himself, protect his family that was sleeping that evening, but to act appropriately as a police officer and to do what he felt at that time was necessary," Kolcharno said.
The Lackawanna County district attorney told us that the investigation into this shooting could take weeks. State police sent evidence to a lab Thursday.
Officer Schulze will remain on administrative leave.
