A tale of two Philadelphias: The accused, suspects and convicted

In the first installment of this three part series, we detailed the names and pictures of Philadelphia police officers who have been killed in the city in the last 2 years-6. In this article, the accused will be profiled and an examination of some similarities will be undertaken. Is there a consistent profile of the accused? What, if anything, did they have in common?

Here are some other important details about this unfortunate urban phenomena Philadelphia is experiencing: All but two of the officers, it could be claimed, were intentionally killed. Two officers died as the result of auto accidents where the accused were the drivers of cars that collided with the officer’s vehicles. In the two auto accident cases involving officer Isabel Nazaro and Sergeant Timothy Simpson, the accused were committing crimes at the time of the crashes; a commonality shared by all of the accused.  All but one of the accused is from Philadelphia. One of the accused is a minor.

The names and pictures above would mean little to the average Philadelphian but for their associations with the deaths of 6 Philadelphia police officers. They are in order of appearance above:

John “Jordan” Lewis accused of killing Philadelphia police officer, Charles Cassidy. Lewis was 21 at the time he allegedly shot and killed Office Cassidy in a robbery of a Dunkin Donuts located in the West Oaks lane section of Philadelphia. At the time of the shooting, Lewis had a three month old child. His mother is a corrections officer in Philadelphia and the weapon used to kill Cassidy is believed to be her department issued firearm. Lewis had prior run-ins with the law involving drugs and theft. He lived in North Philadelphia and had tattooed on one hand, NP (North Philadelphia) and the other HP (Huntington Park).

At the time of the shooting, Lewis, a high school drop out working on obtaining his GED, was employed at a Dunkin Donuts near Roosevelt Boulevard and Rising Sun Avenue in Feltonville.  Lewis apparently had a penchant for donut shops and fast food restaurants as he is a suspect in a string of robberies involving two pizzerias and several Dunkin Donuts.

The details of this shooting were particularly brutal as Montgomery announced the robbery and brandished a weapon before 14 patrons of the bar. In a profanity filled tirade, Montgomery threatened to shoot several customers of the neighborhood bar before Office Skerski and his partner, William Alexander entered the establishment in response to a "robbery in progress" call.   Montgomery allegedly had a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a handgun in the other hand when he opened fire on Skerski who had entered Pat’s through a side door. Skerski was wearing a bullet proof vest when he was shot and killed by Montgomery.

At the time of the shooting Montgomery was on the run from authorities in California. On July 17, 2005, police in Emeryville found him hiding in the bushes outside an establishment. Following a brief struggle, Montgomery was charged with resisting arrest, carrying an unregistered 44-caliber handgun and receiving stolen property. Montgomery never appeared for court and an warrant for his arrest was issued.  Montgomery was previously arrested (2001) and charged in Philadelphia for a robbery at gunpoint but was acquitted by Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes.

A surveillance tape at Pat's Café captured the robbery on film. Even though Montgomery was wearing a ski mask, he was identified by family members when the tape was played on local TV.  Family members recognized the State Property jacket, a small handgun and a New York Yankees cap in the video as belonging to Solomon or “Solo." Other family members indentified the stolen Volvo he was driving the night of the robbery as a car that he had been in possession of for several days. They also testified that he admitted to them that he shot Skerski. Finally, DNA on a shotgun shell similar to the type that killed Skerski matched Solomon’s DNA. The murder weapon has never been recovered.

Solomon capture was not without drama. After being corned at a home he was hiding out in on Orgontz, Montgomery attempted to flee in the stolen Volvo but was blocked by Philadelphia police and shot in an ensuing struggle. Montgomery was taken to Einstein Hospital where he was briefly listed in critical condition. Montgomery recovered and later pled guilty to first degree murder and other robbery related charges in order to avoid the death penalty.

Like Lewis, Montgomery has a three year of child and families on both sides left to wonder: why?

After being released from prison in 2008, Daniel Giddings predicted that he would never go back to jail; that he would die first. On September 23, 2008, Daniel Giddings’s prophecy that he would never go back to jail came true. On that day Giddings not only managed to kill Philadelphia police Officer Patrick McDonald, he got himself killed as well. As it turns out, Giddings was not the only person who had a vision about his life; his neighbors, parole officer and court personnel predicted that Giddings would lead a violent life.

At the age of 10, Giddings was already a familiar face in the halls of justice. Pre-teen Giddings beat up a mentally challenged man and was charged with assault in juvenile court. At age 18, Giddings committed a carjacking and shot the victim in his kneecaps. Facing as much a 45 years for this assault, with his juvenile record in consideration, Giddings was sentenced to 12 years and was released after 10. During his 10 years in prison, Giddings accumulated 27 infractions and was identified as the leader of a cell phone theft and extortion ring. He was involved in several assaults and a planned assault of a staffer and was actually kicked out of two prisons for bad behavior.

Despite this history of misconduct while incarcerated, Giddings was paroled on August 18, 2006 to a half-way house. On the 25^th of August he walked away from that halfway house. Two days later Giddings was pulled over for a traffic violation. Realizing that there was a warrant out for his arrest, Giddings ran and was pursued by two Philadelphia Police officers. Giddings escaped. Less than a month later, Giddings killed McDonald during a traffic stop and wounded another police officer at Dauphine and Bouvier in Philadelphia. 

Giddings was killed at the scene by Philadelphia Police officers.

If it had been up to neighbors on Markoe Street in the Mill Creek section of Mantua, Andre Butler, the 16 year old accused of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Isabelle Nazaro, with a stolen Cadillac Escalade, would have been in jail. Butler reportedly terrorized this neighborhood filled with neat townhouses. From starting fist fights to stealing cars and motorcycles, Butler and his family were a presence in the neighborhood that was a source of constant concern. 

In 2004 at the age of 11, Butler got in trouble for pulling a fire alarm. One year later he graduated to armed robbery and was sent to a juvenile detention facility in the Poconos. He was reportedly kicked out of this facility and sent back to Philadelphia. He apparently acted up so much in this facility that a court date was scheduled to place him in yet another facility. It was then that Butler decided to skip out on the hearing. From that point on he was a fugitive and remained elusive to the law until the day he crashed into Officer Nazaro’s cruiser while driving a stolen Cadillac Escalade.

Even though his mother said that she did not know where he was, neighbors reported seeing him around the house.

The last time Butler was heard from was on 2008, at 39^th and Wallace, not to far from his home. Butler was spotted driving erratically in a white 1992 Cadillac Escalade. It was at this intersection that Butler rammed this stolen vehicle into Nazaro’s police vehicle. Butler exited the vehicle and fled but was caught several blocks later. After reviewing his juvenile record, the court decided to try Butler as an adult for third degree murder and other related crimes, including an assault charge as a result of injuries suffered by Nazaro’s partner in the crash. Butler is currently awaiting trial.

 Butler has finally made it to the big time: he is now being charged as an adult for third degree murder and a host of other charges.

On May 8, 2008, Howard Cain, Levon Warner and Eric Floyd, all of Philadelphia, donned women Muslim garb and went about the business of robbing a Bank of America branch located in a ShopRite on Aramingo Avenue, Philadelphia. As is usually the case, the robbery went horribly wrong and shortly after leaving the bank, the trios were being pursued by police.

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski, a 12 year veteran of the Philadelphia police department, trio agreed to use an SKS rifle, a powerful assault weapon. As he exited his patrol car, a suspect opened fire with the SKS rifle, striking Liczbinski several times.

As other officers joined the pursuit, Howard Cain was shot and killed on the scene and Levon Walker was captured and confessed. Eric Floyd remained at large for days and purportedly smoked crack and played cards with his girlfriend the night of the killing.

To say Howard Cain led a troubled life would be an understatement. At the time he fired 5 shots at Police Officer Stephen Liczbinski, Cain was under parole supervision for a 1996 Philadelphia robbery. He served the minimum 9 to 18 years on that charge. He actually served 9 years and was released from jail on September 5, 2006. The robbery conviction stemmed from a series of robberies of state liquor stores in Philadelphia, where guns were brandished by Cain.

In 1993, Cain stole a car and crashed it during a police chase. He was sentenced to 11 to 23 months for that charge. In 1996, prior to the robbery convictions, Cain was stopped by the police and began fighting with the police. He was sentenced to not more than 23 months for that charge. It is reported that Cain has a child.

On November 17, 2008, William Allan Foster should not been on the streets of Philadelphia; especially under the influence of alcohol and/or heroin. As it was, Foster was on the road that night and crashed his vehicle into the patrol car driven by Sergeant Timothy Simpson of the Philadelphia Police Department. Ironically, Simpson is the former partner of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. 

Foster’s prior run-ins with the law are dizzying in their sheer volume and startling because of the lack of communications between police jurisdictions as it pertains to Foster’s bond/parole/arrest status.

According to court records, Foster had been accused of committing more than 2 dozen crimes in Bucks County alone. These cases were primarily theft /burglary cases; indicative of a person with a drug addiction.

Foster's first brush with the Pennsylvania penal system came in 1989. In that case he was sentenced to 2 years for escape while awaiting trial for assault. He was release in 1991 but back in 1994 because of a parole violation. He was later paroled in 1997 but was violated again the following year. He completed that sentence in 1999.

After his release he quickly relapsed to his old ways picking up a series of burglary, trespassing and stolen property cases. On October 16, 2006, Foster was arrested in Philadelphia after allegedly purchasing a quarter-gram of heroin.

On November 5, 2008 Foster was again arrested in Bucks County, this time for shoplifting. Once again, he was released. Foster also slipped through the grasp of Philadelphia police earlier this month. On Nov. 3, he was involved in a traffic stop in Philadelphia during which police found a disassembled shotgun in the car.

Foster, of Levittown, remains in prison in Philadelphia, charged with third-degree murder and other crimes in the death of Simpson.

 The common denominators among the suspects

These profiled accused and suspects have some things in common: All have had significant contact with the penal system, all should have been in custody at the time they committed their crimes and all had a history of violence and gun possession. Drug addiction is another similarity among several of the suspects. Additionally, all but two were employed at the time of their crimes. Even those employed were employed at low wage earning positions. Based on the evidence, all were poor.