Lewis jury sees video of Cassidy murder

A Philadelphia jury yesterday became uneasy eyewitnesses to the murder at the center of the case they are hearing, courtesy of the multi-camera security system at a North Philadelphia doughnut shop.

In stills and slow motion, the jury watched Officer Chuck Cassidy's last six seconds of consciousness before John "Jordan" Lewis shot him in the head on Oct. 31, 2007.

The jurors watched Lewis walk into the Dunkin' Donuts at 6620 N. Broad St. in West Oak Lane as the digital counter at the bottom of the color video read: 10:30 a.m. and 3 seconds.

Lewis pushes his way into line and starts waving his 9mm pistol at the cashiers behind the counter. Outside, meanwhile, Cassidy's Ford Explorer police wagon is seen through the large picture window pulling up and parking.

Twenty-three seconds after Lewis entered, the veteran officer assigned to the 35th Police District is outside the shop's glass door, his blue shirt and black tie easily visible. He is reaching for the door and then suddenly turns, as if the Dunkin' Donuts employee outside on a cigarette break said something to him.

It's 10:30:29, and Cassidy starts crouching and reaching for his gun. Two seconds later Lewis swings around, takes two steps to the open door, and raises his gun.

The video switches to the outdoor camera. It's 10:30:31 and Cassidy is in a bent-knee crouch, both hands on his service weapon pointed through the open door.

One second later, Cassidy pitches forward. His right arm flails backward and his gun lands a few feet away in the parking lot. Cassidy, 54, is seated on the ground, slumped against the front of the Dunkin' Donuts.

Lewis runs out the door, reaches down and grabs Cassidy's revolver, and runs south across the parking lot toward 66th Avenue.

Cassidy's wife, Judy, and their three children were not in court when the surveillance video played on screens positioned so most of the courtroom audience could not see it.

It appeared to be too much even for Lewis, 23, who faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in Cassidy's killing.

Though he already pleaded guilty to the killing and six robberies - the jury is deciding only the degree of murder - Lewis, facing the audience, slumped in his chair before the video screen, his head resting against his left shoulder and eyes glassy.

When the video was played a second time by Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron, Lewis did not watch. He moved to the other side of the defense table looking at the back of the screen while defense attorneys Michael Coard and Bernard L. Siegel watched.

Several of Lewis' relatives wept as the video played.

"Oh, Jesus!" said one woman as Cassidy was shot and then slumped against the front of the Dunkin' Donuts.

Cassidy died the next day.

The video was equally draining for a series of Dunkin' Donuts employees called by prosecutors to testify about Lewis' robberies of the West Oak Lane store on Sept. 18 and again on Oct. 31.

Khrystal Yang, 20, who started work one week before the Sept. 18 robbery, broke down sobbing as Cameron asked her to explain what was happening on the video.

Yang - the employee seen on the Oct. 31, 2007, video outside on her cigarette break - said that as she walked outside she passed Lewis on his way in.

She was struck by his black sneakers and then by the tattoos on his hands. As her eyes reached his face, Yang testified, she realized it was same man who robbed the store on Sept. 18.

Yang said she pondered what to do when she spotted Cassidy walking toward the front door. Yang said she first thought someone inside had triggered the silent alarm calling police but realized Cassidy was walking too casually.

At the same time, Yang said, she could hear Lewis' voice inside demanding money through the headset that let employees speak to each other and relay customer orders.

Yang said she tried to get Cassidy's attention but within seconds Cassidy was lying mortally wounded on the ground: "It all happened so fast."

Cassidy visited the shop several times each day, Yang said, for a morning coffee and then to check on the shop in a neighborhood where there had been a spate of armed robberies.

"I saw [Lewis] and thought, 'I don't believe he is robbing us again,' " Yang said. "Then I saw Officer Cassidy and thought, 'Everything is going to be OK.' And then everything wasn't OK."

Earlier in the morning, an employee of the Dunkin' Donuts described Cassidy's shooting for the Common Pleas Court jury.

"I was in the bathroom and was walking toward [the counter] when I heard pow," testified Cynthia Beckwith.

Beckwith said she looked toward the front door of the store and saw the distinctive blue shirt of a Philadelphia police officer sliding down the window outside.

"There was screaming, 'Oh, my God, Officer Cassidy's been shot,' " Beckwith said.

Beckwith, who said she had medical training as an operating-room technician, testified that she pressed the towels on top of the bullet hole in Cassidy's forehead to try to stanch the heavy bleeding.

Testimony resumes this morning at the Criminal Justice Center, with prosecutors expected to call several relatives and others to whom Lewis went after he fled the scene of the shooting.