Witness: I chased getaway Jeep after cop killing

The driver of the getaway Jeep involved in a 2008 bank robbery and killing of a Philadelphia police sergeant was so intent on getting away that he nearly ran over a man walking a dog and just missed colliding with a van carrying a man and his 8-year-old son.

The van driver, Michael Nastasiak, yesterday recounted those close calls while testifying at the trial of two men accused in the May 3 slaying of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, 39. Nastasiak testified that he was so upset that he and his son were nearly killed by the Jeep as it raced through their Port Richmond neighborhood that he gave chase.

"I was thinking of my kid's safety. I was pretty pissed off . . . I was leaning on my horn," he said during questioning by Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy.

Not knowing the Jeep's occupants were suspected of robbing a bank and killing a cop, Nastasiak said he called 911 after the Jeep crashed into a stop sign at Miller Street near Ontario.

He saw one man jump into a Chrysler minivan and believes the other two did likewise when he was making a U-turn to get behind the vehicle.

"Who really does that? Something had to be going on," Nastasiak said of the vehicle switch.

While following the minivan, he said he told the 911 operator every turn the vehicle made until he lost sight of it on Frankford Avenue, near Venango Street.

"They're cutting off cars left and right, they're flying down the street," Nastasiak said in a portion of audio tape played for the Common Pleas jury.

Eric Deshann Floyd, 35, and Levon T. Warner, 41, could be sentenced to death if convicted of first-degree murder in Liczbinski's death.

While both men have given police statements confessing to taking part in the robbery, their defense attorneys contend that they had nothing to do with the 12-year police veteran's slaying.

Conroy has said that their accomplice, Howard Cain, 34, used a stolen assault rifle to kill the officer at Almond and Schiller streets - a short drive from the bank the three had just robbed.

At some point after ditching the Jeep for the minivan, the thieves split up.

Police followed a bank tracking device to East Loudon Street where they found Cain partially seated in the minivan, his feet on the sidewalk.

Police officers Bisart Worede and Shamaya Allen testified that Cain - still clutching the rifle - charged and bumped Worede.

The barrel of the rifle hit Worede's right bicep, leaving a fist-sized bruise, a picture of which Conroy showed the jury.

"All I know is, I saw that gun, I felt the barrel. I thought I was going to die," Worede said on the witness stand.

Though he came face-to-face with Cain, Worede could not identify him when shown a picture. Allen began to cry and identified Cain when she was shown the same picture.

After he and Cain separated slightly after the impact of the bump, Worede and Allen emptied their service weapons into Cain, they testified.

The fatally wounded cop-killer collapsed on the sidewalk in a large puddle of his blood. A bag of bank money was recovered from inside the minivan.