Witnesses testify about cop killer’s stickups

Two years later, Danielle Rivera still cannot shake the terror she felt as the robber yelled obscenities, waived his gun at her and her two young children, and underscored his frustration by firing into the floor.

"I was just thinking about my kids. I thought he would shoot them because my daughter was crying and I was just trying to keep her quiet," said Rivera, struggling to get the words out over sobs.

Rivera was one of several witnesses today who told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury about the five armed robberies John "Jordan" Lewis admitted doing before the Oct. 31, 2007, heist that ended in the death of police Officer Chuck Cassidy.

On Oct. 25, 2007, Rivera had been a cashier for about eight years at Feltonville Pizza at 4812 N. Rising Sun Ave., when Lewis walked in at about 7:45 p.m.

It was six days before Cassidy's shooting at a North Broad Street Dunkin' Donuts. Rivera and others were called by city prosecutors to prove what they called a pattern of increasing violence and recklessness in the five robberies that preceded the one in which Cassidy, 54, a 25-year officer, was shot and killed.

Lewis, 23, stunned the courtroom Thursday when he unexpectedly pleaded guilty to Cassidy's killing, all six robberies and gun charges.

But Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Selber and Edward Cameron have argued that it is still important for the jury to hear about all the crimes.

Selber argued Thursday that testimony about the other robberies would prove Lewis shot Cassidy not out of panic - the defense claim - but because he was evolving from robber to murderer.

Although Lewis pleaded guilty to the crimes, the jury must still decide the degree of murder: first-degree, a premeditated, malicious killing; or second-degree, a killing while committing another felony.

For Lewis, the difference could mean life or death.

If the jurors find Lewis guilty of first-degree murder, they begin another hearing to decide if he should be put to death or behind bars for life with no chance of parole. Second-degree murder carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Testimony resumes Monday at the Criminal Justice Center in Center City.

Lewis' robberies began Sept. 18, 2007, with a holdup at the Dunkin' Donuts on North Broad Street at 66th Avenue in West Oak Lane.

They ended at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 31, 2007 in the same Dunkin' Donuts when Cassidy, on routine patrol, walked in on the robbery and was shot once in the head by Lewis.

The Feltonville Pizza robbery was the most violent of those before Cassidy's killing.

Rivera testified that Lewis angrily ordered her about the pizzeria, often grabbing her by the hair to guide her.

She said Lewis swore at her 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter and ordered them at gunpoint to leave the shop's office - where they were playing - after he learned there was a safe inside.

Cook David Castro Portuguez said Lewis came up behind him, turned him around by the shoulder and pressed the barrel of a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol to the center of his forehead.

And cook Edgar Ceciliano testified about trying to hide. Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Ceciliano said Lewis spotted him, ordered to the front of the shop with the others and then smacked him on the back of his head with the gun.

Rivera said she still worries that every customer who comes into the pizzeria could be a robber. Her daughter underwent therapy and still panics when she sees someone who resembles Lewis, Rivera said.

If the other robberies were not as violent as the Feltonville incident, some displayed a brazen recklessness.

Yaharia Melendez, a cook at Oases Pizza at 4515 N. Fifth St. in Hunting Park, identified Lewis as the man who robbed the shop on Oct. 20, 2007.

Melendez said she knew is was Lewis because "he was a regular customer" who was finicky enough to demand only all-beef sausage be used in his pizza.

She said she and other employees often chatted with Lewis, and she recalled one time when he seemed especially worried about problems with the mother of his young daughter.

Melendez said Lewis was familiar enough to workers no one jumped when he pulled out a gun: "He was mad because everybody was looking at him like he was playing."