MIAMI VISE

DEEP DOWN, John "Jordan" Lewis had to know that he wouldn't be able to stay on the run for long as a fugitive cop-killer - not with an army of police and FBI agents willing to go to hell and back to bring him in.

But Lewis ran anyway, with the help of a family member who now finds himself in legal trouble. A cousin drove Lewis to Delaware on Saturday and put him on a Greyhound bus bound for Miami, police said. When investigators found out that he had fled, the manhunt went national.

The pressure appeared to have been too much for the husky, baby-faced high-school dropout. When Lewis, 21, arrived at a downtown Miami homeless shelter on Monday afternoon, he was in tears, an employee said.

Lewis used a fake name - Akim Melvin Atwell - and made no mention of the fact that he was wanted in the fatal shooting of Officer Chuck Cassidy on Halloween in West Oak Lane.

Workers at the Miami Rescue Mission had welcomed him and had given him a place to sleep and shower. "He appeared to be very young. We tried to get him to not leave," said Terri Ramos, the mission's public-relations director. But Lewis' stay proved to be short-lived.

A shelter staffer saw Lewis' mugshot on the local morning news yesterday and immediately called 911. Within minutes, dozens of Miami cops surrounded the shelter while Lewis was listening to a Scripture reading inside the shelter's chapel.

At 6:48 a.m. - after a shelter employee told him that he was needed at the front desk - Lewis was arrested by Miami police without incident. The desperate manhunt was over, giving weary detectives and Cassidy's family a chance to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

"Since this first started, our main concern was to identify the person that was responsible for it. Our second [priority] was to apprehend this person, which we've done," said Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson.

"Our third now is to get this person brought back to the city of Philadelphia and convicted. Our fourth, unfortunately, is to prepare for the funeral of Officer Chuck Cassidy."

Five Philadelphia detectives flew to Miami yesterday to interview Lewis and to assist with the extradition process, which should have Lewis back in Philadelphia sometime today.

In a symbolic gesture, sources said, the detectives brought Cassidy's service handcuffs to Florida and plan to use them on Lewis when they bring him back.

Although Lewis is in custody, investigators continued to compile evidence yesterday and tie up loose ends, chief among them dealing with a family member who police said aided Lewis' run from the law.

Lewis' cousin Hakim Glover, 29, was arrested and charged with hindering apprehension and obstructing justice.

Glover drove Lewis to Wilmington on Saturday and purchased the Greyhound ticket in Glover's own name, even though Lewis already had told several family members that he shot Cassidy, police sources said.

Glover told Lewis' grandmother, Vernetha Glover Henry, about the trip to Delaware, and she notified investigators, sources said.

Glover initially resisted cooperating with detectives, but eventually relented and disclosed Lewis' whereabouts.

Police officials said it was frustrating to find that Lewis' relative had helped him, even after Lewis had been identified as the main suspect in Cassidy's murder.

"For some people, blood is thicker than water," said Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross. "That doesn't make it the right thing."

Investigators had worried that the hunt for Lewis would end in more bloodshed. According to a court affidavit, he had told family members that he had no intention of being caught, and detectives believed that he was armed while he was on the run.

On Monday, police found two weapons at Glover's house in Hunting Park: Cassidy's 9 mm Glock, which Lewis is accused of stealing after he allegedly shot the veteran cop in the head, and a 9 mm Hi-Point that police said ballistic tests prove was used to kill Cassidy.

A 9 mm Jennings, which Lewis stole from his mother, a city corrections officer, still has not been found, police said.

The district attorney's office will decide if charges should be filed against Lewis' mother, Lynn Dyches, who as of last night had not talked with reporters.

Police sources said Lewis had stayed at his mother's house in the first few days following Cassidy's slaying without telling her that he was the triggerman. Family members told police that Lewis appeared nonchalant and unaffected by the crime, police sources said.

"My greatest fear," Commissioner Johnson said, "was that we had a person that was armed and dangerous and that, once confronted by law enforcement, he would resist and that there would possibly be a shoot-out where he would be harmed or another police officer would be harmed or a citizen would be harmed."

But the two Miami cops who arrested Lewis said he surrendered peacefully. He was clad in a baggy yellow jacket and a dark shirt and pants, clutching a Bible with a blank expression on his face.

"In a very sad way, this brought this to some sort of closure. He's in custody now," said Miami Police Chief John Timoney, who had learned Monday night that Lewis was likely in Miami.

"Any police officer that gets killed nationwide hurts me and hurts the profession, but being from Philadelphia, I took this one a little more personal," said Timoney, a former Philadelphia police commissioner.

The murder of Cassidy, a married father of three, has left the Philadelphia Police Department and residents across the city in a state of mourning.

A sign was hung on the West Oak Lane Dunkin' Donuts, where he was slain, saying that it would remain closed until after he is laid to rest later today.

Clerks at the doughnut shop, on Broad Street near 66th Avenue, said Cassidy had visited there almost every day over the last three years, making sure employees were safe.

Northwest Detectives Inspector Joseph Sullivan, who went through the Police Academy with Cassidy and who worked with him for several years in the 39th District, reflected yesterday on the loss of the widely respected cop. Cassidy had spent much of his career in the 35th District, at Broad and Champlost streets.

"There were times this week when I thought I saw him walking across the yard, but then I realized it's not the case," Sullivan said.

He said he felt "utter relief" when he learned that Lewis had been captured, but "now we're forced to face the stark reality that Chuck won't be walking through the district's doors ever again."

Sullivan phoned Cassidy's family to tell them that Lewis was in custody.

"It was of great comfort to Mrs. Cassidy and the Cassidy family that this was accomplished before any of the services began," Sullivan said. "They've been holding up amazingly well, but much of that has been because they were solely devoted to the goal of apprehending this individual. Now they're completely focused on their grief."

Sullivan said Cassidy's relatives were touched by an ever-growing memorial of teddy bears and votive candles that residents from across the city and the suburbs have added outside the Dunkin' Donuts.

The Cassidy family released a statement yesterday that read in part: "We are extremely appreciative of the hard work of the Philadelphia Police Department during the past week and are grateful as well for the efforts of the police officers in Miami."

A $153,000 reward had been posted for information leading to the capture and conviction of Cassidy's killer. It was unclear yesterday if the reward would go to tipsters from Miami or even to one of Lewis' relatives.

"There are different aspects of the investigation that we're going to look at and see how we're going to disseminate the reward," said John Apeldorn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley. *

Staff writer Regina Medina contributed to this report.