At emotional hearing, a cop's death retold

A visibly pregnant Kim Pawlowski walked slowly into the packed courtroom yesterday and took her seat in the front row, where she immediately began crying, dabbing a tissue to her eyes.

She, along with other family, cops and observers, stared intently toward a side door, waiting for the man accused of killing her husband, Police Officer John Pawlowski, to enter the courtroom.

The clack-clack of Rasheed Scruggs' walker rang out in the courtroom before spectators saw him.

Scruggs, 33, who is tall, bearded and thin, then entered for what became an emotional preliminary hearing, after which he was held for trial on charges of first-degree murder and related offenses.

Municipal Judge Patrick F. Dugan, in a loud voice, told Scruggs after the hearing: "It appears, sir, that what you are is a domestic, urban terrorist! You ambushed officers" responding to a call for help.

Pawlowski, 25, was shot three times, once each in the chest, back and a graze wound on his arm, Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Juliano Coelho told the court.

Pawlowski's partner, Mark Klein, a young, red-haired officer, nervously testified yesterday that shortly before 8:20 p.m. Feb. 13 he and Pawlowski responded to a radio call of "a person with a weapon, a person with a knife" at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Olney Avenue, in Fern Rock, across from the Olney Transportation Center bus station.

As they pulled up, they saw a cab driver, Emmanuel Cesar, who had called police for help, waving his arms.

The officers got out of their car, and Klein said that he saw Scruggs about 10 to 15 feet away, walking backwards, with his hands in the pockets of his brown jacket. Klein said that he and Pawlowski yelled, "Let me see your hands!"

Scruggs didn't take his hands out of his pockets and instead "turned toward John" and fired his gun, Klein said.

"I saw the muzzle flash. John was standing, then he basically collapsed," Klein testified, as Kim Pawlowski wept in the gallery. The distraught widow rocked back and forth, at times staring at the ceiling, surrounded by her parents and in-laws.

Klein said that in the heart-pounding seconds following the shots, he noticed that another officer, Stephen Mancuso, had arrived on the scene. Scruggs began running, then "took the gun out of his pocket" and began firing at Mancuso, and then turned to fire toward him, Klein said.

Officer Mancuso also testified, and said that when he pulled up in his car he saw Pawlowski and Klein facing Scruggs. He said that he heard a couple of shots, and "I saw John tense up a little, then he fell to the ground."

As Mancuso opened his door with his left arm, he said that he "felt and heard a swishing noise hit my jacket," as what is believed to have been a bullet whooshed by.

Mancuso said he then fired one shot from his service weapon at Scruggs, who was running.

Scruggs "turned to look in my direction, and believing he was going to discharge again, I fired two more times," Mancuso said.

Klein testified that as he was crouching for cover in front of his car, he, too, fired his service weapon at Scruggs "like 10 times."

"I basically fired until the defendant dropped," Klein said.

Cesar, the cab driver who had called police, testified that he had been walking to a Dunkin' Donuts before the shooting when Scruggs "grabbed me and he was like, 'How much you made today?' " Cesar said that Scruggs then started "slamming me against the gate" of a newsstand.

Cesar said that he knew Scruggs from having seen and talked to him before at Broad and Olney. After being slammed against the newsstand, he said that he walked away, and Scruggs followed, yelling: "If you call the cops, I'll shoot you and I'll shoot the cops!"

A witness at the scene, Jean Paul, testified yesterday that Pawlowski grabbed his chest and cried out, "I'm shot! I'm hurt!" Paul said that he saw a gun lying near Scruggs after Scruggs fell after being shot several times.

Co-prosecutor Ed McCann, chief of the D.A.'s homicide unit, said afterward that Scruggs did not have a knife on him.

Earlier, during a break in the hearing, Scruggs fell as sheriff's deputies escorted him to a holding cell.

He yelled: "Damn! Why you trip me like that?" The deputies yelled: "Nobody pushed you!" *