The catalystPage full of 4 -- There are still times when Taciana Ribeiro Saab speaks of him in the present tense.
"Cristian has a deep appreciation, " Saab will say. For her, nearly four months after her 18-year-old son was stabbed to death when he confronted a shoplifter outside a
He smiles from the photographs arrayed throughout Saab's home, both as the boy he was and the man he was becoming. His name adorns three new $5,000 scholarships from New England Baptist Hospital whose first recipients will be chosen by hospital executives today. His vitality and empathy are the subjects of tributes that poured in from his many friends to a memorial website, which Saab read over and over on the nights when she could not sleep. "You don't know the reach of your child's life," she says, half in sadness, half in wonderment. "Cristian's last gift to me was to get to know his friends." And her last gift to him is a campaign to stiffen workplace rules in retail establishments all across the state so that employees do not feel pressure -- explicit or implicit -- to pursue shoplifters. Her goal is to persuade businesses to hire security guards, to adopt policies that prohibit employees from confronting shoplifters, and to better train the young people who increasingly man the front lines of retail. On the night of Feb. 16, Cristian Giambrone was on those frontlines, working at the CVS drug store in the Longwood neighborhood. According to law enforcement authorities, his co-worker, Henry Young, saw Daniel S. Rogers, a 45-year-old convicted felon, stuffing packages of toothpaste into his jacket. Young and Giambrone followed Rogers outside, confronted him, and began to escort him back inside. At that point, authorities allege, Rogers pulled out a knife and stabbed Young twice, then stabbed Giambrone in the neck when he attempted to help his co-worker. Though passersby tried to help, Giambrone bled to death in the middle of Boston's hospital district. He died trying to prevent the theft of nine tubes of toothpaste. In March, Taciana Ribeiro Saab stood in Roxbury District Court as Rogers pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and attempted murder. Today, a pretrial hearing is scheduled in Suffolk Superior Court on procedural issues related to the charges against Rogers.
Seeking answers It is an issue that would appear to need a catalyst. According to the state Department of Public Health, 82 workers were murdered on the job from 1991 to 1999, making murder the third-leading cause of work-related deaths in Massachusetts during that period. Half of those murders whose motives were known stemmed from robberies, the DPH found, and black and Hispanic workers were disproportionately among the victims compared to their percentage of the labor force. Though Saab has a demanding job as head of economic planning for the Fenway Community Development Corp., she has volunteered to speak in schools and neighborhood forums about workplace safety as part of Project COBWEB (Collaboration for Better Work Environment for Brazilians in Massachusetts). C. Eduardo Siqueira, a research assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell who is spearheading the project, says that while its aim is to educate and train young Brazilian immigrants working in restaurants or fast-food chains and other industries on how to avoid occupational hazards, it will reach out to retail workers of all ethnic groups. In a related effort, Saab, 40, is also working with the Teens Lead at Work project run by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health to examine the experiences of teenagers in retail jobs in order to raise public awareness of, and find solutions to, the dangers they sometimes face on the job. "What happened to her son gives her a fire beyond even her previous ability to spark change," says the coalition's executive director, Marcy Goldstein-Gelb. "It's really made her a catalyst."
Painful reminders "He was trying to do the right things, make the right choices," says Saab. His growing maturity manifested itself in little things as well: In the weeks before his death, he had stopped being grouchy when she woke him up early in the morning and had begun to thank her instead. Within weeks after Cristian's death, she and her husband, Pedro Marum Saab, and their 10-year-old son, Nikoi, moved from their apartment in Jamaica Plain to an apartment in Roxbury. "There was an empty bedroom in the house. It was torture," she says. "I had to get out of there, because of the memories." She says she was haunted to learn that Rogers, the accused murderer, had lived just a few blocks from their previous address. "Probably I had seen this man on the street," she says quietly. An unfinished portrait of Cristian, painted by Pedro Saab, stands in the apartment. "I have good moments, I have bad moments," she says. "I have moments of rage. I have moments of feeling completely lost. . . . Sometimes, despair sets in. I tried to be the best parent I could be, and now this. In that one second, he's gone." She takes what consolation she can from the fact that the 18 years before that one second were so full of life. Friend after friend has told her that, within the halls of Boston Latin Academy, Cristian was a sought-after source of advice and guidance. Poring over pictures of him with Latino, African-American, white, and Asian-American friends, she takes pride in the fact that "he was a kid that was able to cross ethnic lines in his life." Cristian's friends have taken it upon themselves to befriend Nikoi and to take him to the movies and to the mall. She chuckles at the memories of how, after growing a goatee the summer before he turned 18, Cristian decided to also grow his sideburns long and asked her to trim them just so ("That caused a lot of angst in the house"). He always wore fine clothes from fashion designers like Giorgio Armani or Kenneth Cole, but his work ethic was such that he always had a job so he could pay for those clothes and for his car and cellphone.
Earlier adversity In a 1992 ruling, the state Appeals Court said Mark Giambrone had twice tried to abduct Cristian; Saab herself was also charged with parental kidnapping when the Appeals Court said she had violated an Ohio court's order granting custody to Giambrone. Ultimately, Cristian lived with his father in Cincinnati while attending seventh and eighth grades, then moved to Boston and attended Latin Academy while living with his mother. (Mark Giambrone declined to be interviewed for this story.) Friends describe her as an exceptionally devoted mother whose goal was always to provide Cristian with a happy life. She evidently succeeded; for a class, he once wrote these words about a period when they lived in Florida: "Even though my mom didn't have a great job, she still made it as much fun as she could for me." She also tried her best to keep him safe from harm. At one point, Cristian wanted to take a job at a convenience store. Saab refused because she considered it an unsafe place to work. When he landed a job at CVS, though, she approved. Now, however, she is highly critical of CVS. She says she is convinced that "the real cause of my son's death is bad corporate policy," adding: "I do blame CVS and their practices." CVS spokesman Todd Andrews said his company's policy -- spelled out to new employees through video and written materials during orientation -- "specifically says not to confront or pursue shoplifters." Andrews said two company investigations at the Longwood store following Cristian's death found that employees there "were clearly aware that it was against company policy to pursue shoplifters." Saab says employees nonetheless felt pressure to apprehend shoplifters. She cites a sign in the store indicating that "Shoplifters cost us money" and the fact that store managers' bonuses are tied to financial performance. Andrews says the sign is meant as a deterrent to shoplifters, not a suggestion that employees should confront them. He denied that managerial bonuses are a factor, saying that shoplifting makes up a small percentage of the losses that stores experience in any case. As to why no security guard was stationed at the store, Andrews said CVS has guards in "high-crime-risk" areas and stores, and the Longwood store was not in that category. "There's simply no way to bring sense to Cristian's death," Andrews says. "We understand that nothing is going to make the sense of loss felt by Cristian's family any less. Cristian was a young man of outstanding character who saw someone taking something from the store and wanted to take action. We very much regret that he was killed."
Policy discussions
A similar policy applies at Lieutenant Kevin Foley, a spokesman for the Boston Police Department, said the question of how to deal with shoplifters is "purely an individual or corporate decision within the store." As for Saab, she is hoping CVS will set aside some funds for more rigorous training of employees on workplace safety and for prevention efforts. She has also retained an attorney, Naomi Shelton, who says she is gathering facts on the case and hoping the company will enter a "cooperative effort" in scrutinizing its workplace policies. Asked whether she plans to file a lawsuit, Shelton replies that "pretty much any legal action is a possibility right now." But no amount of legal action will help Saab with the challenge of getting through each day. That part, she knows, is up to her. "I'm in a journey," she says. "I have to learn how to love a dead son."
Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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