SCRANTON -- A police officer charged with homicide in the shooting death of a man in Carbondale was in court Tuesday.
Prosecutors presented evidence as to why the cop from Carbondale should be held criminally responsible for his death.
At the end of the preliminary hearing, a magistrate decided that there is enough evidence to charge Officer Frank Schulze with an open count of homicide. All but one of the charges against Schulze will now go on to trial.
Officer Schulze was off duty at the time of the shooting in February. The hearing revealed more about his history with Joe Molinaro while he was on-duty with the Carbondale Police Department.
Surveillance video showed the moments before off-duty Carbondale Police Officer Frank Schulze shot and killed Joe Molinaro. In court, attorneys heard the actual moment.
Officer Schulze called 911, the shots go off, and the dispatcher asks why the officer was following the victim.
Schulze is heard saying, "he started coming after me and moving his hands all over the place."
We now know precisely how long officer Schulze followed his victim: 743 feet. About the length of two and a half football fields.
"It's a very long way, you know, through a very dark a secluded wooded alley. There was a lot of time that passed here and a lot of time for reflection where you could think, 'What am I doing here?'" Lackawanna County District Attorney Shane Scanlon said.
Investigators testified that Officer Schulze had encountered his victim twice before the February shooting. Once during a domestic abuse call involving Molinaro and once just weeks before the shooting when Molinaro was stopped for public intoxication.
"The District Attorney has elected to focus on the complete conduct of my client, without taking into consideration of any of the conduct of Mr. Molinaro what so ever. His background, his criminal record, anything what so ever," said Officer Schulze's defense attorney Corey Kolcharno.
The hearing also revealed that Officer Schulze admits to having three drinks before confronting Molinaro in his driveway in Carbondale in February. Schulze said Molinaro and his girlfriend were fighting.
Schulze's attorney said that as a police officer, Frank Schulze was obligated to get involved.
"There's a good officer with a clean record sitting in a jail right now unnecessarily," Kolcharno added.
The defense made an unusual move during the preliminary hearing. The attorney called the prosecution's key witness to the stand. But, while testifying, that witness changed his original statement and now says Schulze and Molinaro were a few feet closer to each other when the shooting occurred.
