By Vernon Clark
Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — A municipal court judge yesterday branded the accused killer of Officer John Pawlowski as “a domestic urban terrorist” who “ambushed” police officers responding to a call.
In a courtroom nearly filled with police officers and friends and relatives of Pawlowski, who was slain Feb. 13, Judge Patrick Dugan then ordered Rasheed Scrugs held for trial, which he scheduled for April 16.
Scrugs, 33, is charged with murder, attempted murder, robbery and related charges in connection with the death of Pawlowski, 25, who was shot when he intervened in an attempted robbery.
For the first time, officers on the scene gave a detailed account of the deadly confrontation, with one saying he fired at least 10 shots toward Scrugs.
Pawlowski’s widow, Kim, who is pregnant, sat in the front row of the courtroom with relatives and wept throughout the hearing. Several ranking police officials were present, and uniformed police officers lined both sides of a long hallway leading to the courtroom.
Four witnesses, including Pawlowski’s partner, Officer Mark Klein, identified Scrugs as the gunman as they testified about the shooting at Broad Street and Olney Avenue.
Klein said that he and Pawlowski were responding to a report of a man with a knife when they arrived at the scene and saw hack taxi driver Emmanuel Ceser, who identified Scrugs as the man who had been harassing him and trying to take his money.
“I noticed the defendant walking backwards with his eyes on me and John,” Klein testified. “John said, ‘I want to see your hands.’ ”
Klein said that Scrugs then fired out a handgun from his right jacket pocket and that Pawlowski “was standing and then basically collapsed.”
Klein testified that he started dragging Pawlowski toward their patrol car and that Scrugs then began firing at Officer Stephen Mancuso, who arrived as backup, “and that’s when he came around and fired at me.”
“I basically fired until the defendant dropped,” Klein said, adding that he fired about 10 shots.
Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann said Pawlowski was felled by three gunshots, one to the right chest, a graze wound to the right arm and one shot to the back.
Mancuso testified that as he drove to the scene, he saw Pawlowski and Klein facing Scrugs.
“I looked and saw a male standing there. John and Mark were walking toward the male and I saw a muzzle flash. . . . I saw John kind of tense up and fall to the ground.”
Mancuso said that he fired three shots at Scrugs and that he saw “muzzle flashes” coming from Scrugs.
He said he then saw Scrugs fall to the ground on the Broad Street median.
Through much of the 90-minute hearing, Scrugs sat with his elbows on the defense table, his hands folded in front of his face. Scrugs, who was wounded in the shootout, used a walker to enter the court from a holding area.
During a break in the testimony, Scrugs fell to the floor in the doorway of a holding area as he was being led from the courtroom. He accused court officers of pushing him down.
In his testimony, Ceser, the taxi driver, said that Scrugs had slammed him against a newsstand, grabbed at a chest-level pocket on Ceser’s jacket where he kept his money and asked, “How much did you make today?”
Ceser said he walked across Broad Street and called police.
He said Scrugs confronted him again. “He told me if I called the cops, he would shoot me and the cops.”
Outside the courthouse, Lee Mandell, Scrugs’ court-appointed defense attorney, said he offered to waive the preliminary hearing to spare Pawlowski’s family from hearing the testimony.
McCann, the assistant district attorney, said he wanted to hold the hearing so that any testimony given would be part of the court record if something were to happen to witnesses.
Copyright 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer