sentences:  He performed at the September 23, 2001 "Prayer For America" concert, honoring the victims of the September 11 terror attacks.Plácido Domingo, who was also on the bill, heard him sing and invited him to attend the Domingo/Vilar Young Artists Institute in Washington D.C. for 18 months of opera study.After seven years as a police officer and then finally gaining national recognition as a singer, he explains, "I wasn't a cop who started singing; I was a singer who became a cop...I've been given the gift to sing.