Black leader understands action taken by Saco police in fatal shooting

SACO — After meeting with top police officials Monday, a black leader backed away from his earlier criticism of the department for detaining a young black man on the basis of false information supplied by witnesses to a fatal shooting.

A white man now faces a manslaughter charge in the case.

The president of the Maine chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Neville Knowles of Old Orchard Beach, said his initial feeling that the case bore similarities to the Carol Stuart murder investigation in Boston has been dispelled.

“When I first heard about this, the first thing that came to mind was the Stuart case. But after sitting down and talking with the chief and the deputy chief, it’s my feeling that race didn’t have anything to do with the actions of the Saco Police Department,” Knowles said.

In the Stuart slaying, black men were randomly questioned by police on the basis of a false report by the woman’s husband, who eventually was implicated in the killing and jumped to his death off a Boston bridge.

Knowles said he feels police did nothing wrong and were not motivated by racial bias when they detained Jonathan Johnson, 19, as he returned home from school last Wednesday afternoon.

Johnson, who is black, lives in an apartment across a courtyard from the apartment where Joseph Low, 21, was shot. Maine State Police Detective Sgt. Michael Harriman said Low’s roommates told the first officers at the scene that a black youth had fired the shot and fled on foot.

The witnesses later recanted that description, Harriman said, and a white man who lived in the apartment, Dana Harris, 20, was arrested on a manslaughter charge.

Last week, in an interview with the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, Knowles was critical of the way police handled the investigation.

“I would think a police department in this sort of situation would be more in tune, more sensitive, before just going out and picking up a black individual for this type of crime,” he told the newspaper.

But after the meeting Monday, Knowles said he believes the police acted correctly.

Harriman said Johnson was detained for about an hour and 45 minutes before being questioned for about five minutes. He was then released.

“The reason for the delay was to continue the interview with the two witnesses,” Lisa Catroppo, 17, and Simon Langdon, 20, Harriman said. “As we continued the interview we came to realize that the story about the black man was bogus,” the detective said.

Langdon and Ms. Catroppo, who also lived in the apartment, later admitted that they had fabricated the story and that no black man was involved, according to Harriman.

Low’s other roommate, Harris, was arrested the next day on a charge of manslaughter and was ordered held in lieu of $25,000 cash bail.

Harriman said no charges have been filed against Catroppo and Langdon in connection with their initial report to police.