OFFICER DIES

UPDATE 10:30 A.M: Police sources have informed the Daily News that Officer Cassidy was pronounced dead at 9:46 this morning.

WITH PHILADELPHIA Police Officer Charles Cassidy collapsed next to a trash can, a bullet embedded in his brain, the man who shot him carried out one final insult against the veteran lawman.

Carrying his own gun in one hand, the brazen thug stole the officer's police-issued revolver from the sidewalk and ran.

Cassidy, a police officer of 25 years and a married father of three, remains in "extremely, extremely, extremely" critical condition at Albert Einstein Medical Center, Police Commissioner Sylvester John-son said.

Yesterday morning's shooting at the Dunkin' Donuts on North Broad Street near 66th Avenue, in the city's West Oak Lane section, prompted one of the largest and most intense manhunts in Philadelphia history.

The shooting outraged local officials reeling over the fact that Cassidy was the fourth Philadelphia police officer shot this year - the third this week, and the second in just 12 hours.

Cassidy was doing a routine check of the restaurant in light of a Sept. 18 robbery there that police now believe was conducted by the same perpetrator. As Cassidy approached the establishment around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, an employee told him that a robbery was under way inside.

With a hand on his pistol, Cassidy opened the door, alarming the would-be robber, who abandoned his pursuit for cash and instead fired at Cassidy's head, lodging a single bullet deep into his brain.

"He didn't try to wound him, he assassinated him," Johnson said.

Dunkin' Donuts clerk Sandra Kim said that Cassidy, who is "always so nice," comes into the store "every day, twice a day" and orders a large coffee with cream and sugar. Kim was behind the counter when the gunman came in and demanded money.

"He saw the cop coming in and shot him outside just as he was opening the door," Kim said. "I heard the shot and then I ran outside and saw him lying there. I immediately started crying. I was crying for four hours straight."

Within minutes, officers from "every single district in the city" converged on the scene, Johnson said. More than 300 multi-divisional officers, including a large SWAT contingent, combed through the Mount Airy and West Oak Lane neighborhoods.

Marked and unmarked police cruisers, crime-scene units, K-9 units and medics lined a stretch of Broad Street from 65th Avenue northward.

A sheriff's van was even used to ferry police officers to the scene from the Criminal Justice Center, where they had been testifying in other cases.

Mayor John F. Street, who spent most of the morning at the hospital with Cassidy's family, reiterated his calls for stronger gun laws. He said the amount of blood on Philadelphia's streets as a result of illegal firearms seems to have no effect on policies in Harrisburg or Washington.

"Unless we can get control over the proliferation of illegal guns, then the people who are most at risk are, of course, the members of the Police Department," he said. "If [legislators] don't have any concern at all for the kind of violence that we are seeing on the streets of cities all over the country today, then I don't know what would cause them to have a renewed consciousness."

Johnson said his officers are being "basically assassinated" by armed and violent criminals.

"The availability of weapons in our city . . . the availability of guns are really completely out of hand here in the city of Philadelphia," he said. "Legislators have to realize that we have a gun problem."

The Democratic nominee for mayor, Michael Nutter, said the recent rash of police shootings highlights an "ongoing pattern of behavior."

"I think Stevie Wonder would see, or Jose Feliciano would see, that there's obviously a problem here," he said. "We have people who are actively and aggressively taking on the Philadelphia Police Department."

Nutter pledged that if elected, his administration, which will include a new police commissioner, will change the "entire philosophy" of how the city fights crime.

Yesterday, the city tried to fight this crime by every available means. Police searched through apartment complexes, homes and even a nearby cemetery. Clues were sought in sewer inlets, trash receptacles and low-lying brush.

Officers rounded up several men who vaguely fit the description of the suspect, a 5-foot-11 to 6-foot, stocky black male with an identifying tattoo on his left hand. But as of last night, the assailant had not been apprehended.

Sources at the scene said that two door handles were removed from the front door of the Dunkin' Donuts to try to obtain the gunman's fingerprints.

Many people watched the day's organized chaos on the sidelines, including Moseh, a SEPTA cop for five years who asked that his last name be withheld.

"I came here in search of a better life," said Moseh, who is from Jamaica. "That life isn't here. I'm going to leave for sure."

Yet, amid the pain and suffering, small acts of kindness broke through a bleak day.

The Salvation Army brought lunch to people on the scene, police cruisers escorted Cassidy's family members to the hospital, and dozens of police officers - many of them top brass in plainclothes - streamed into the emergency room.

"There is a wonderful spirit of solidarity. Everyone is helping, everyone is praying," said Cardinal Justin Rigali, who spent about an hour at Cassidy's side.

Rigali said that another priest had administered a last-rites ceremony for Cassidy before he had arrived.

"You can imagine the sorrow, the suffering, the immense pressure that is on the family," he said. "They are people of faith, they are people of hope."

Street vowed to find the man responsible, and even suggested that his views on capital punishment may have been swayed in light of the shooting.

"We're going to find the person who did this, we are going to find them and they will be punished," he said. "I'm not a big death-penalty advocate . . . but when I see an officer in the condition that this officer is in, the grave condition, if he should lose his life in a condition like this it really makes you start wondering."

Last night, police released an edited surveillance video of yesterday's incident and the Sept. 18 robbery at the same location, believed to have been committed by the same man.

Johnson noted that the assailant had a distinctive walk, "some sort of limp." There appeared to be at least three customers in the store yesterday, when the gunman walked in with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, shadowing most of his face. He could be seen on the video pointing the gun at both cashiers and patrons inside the store.

Anyone with information on the suspect or his whereabouts is asked to call the homicide unit at 215-686-3334 or 215-686-3335. The suspect is considered armed and extremely dangerous and anyone who thinks they see the man should dial 911 immediately.

A $50,000 reward has been offered by the Fraternal Order of the Police, Pete Ciarrocchi of Chickie's and Pete's; Mike Driscoll of Finnigan's Wake, and John Dougherty of the Electricians Local 98.

In an ironic twist, moments before receiving the call regarding Cassidy, police officials were preparing to start a police plaque dedication on nearby Limekiln Pike.

Police officials canceled the plaque dedication for officers James F. Duffin and John P. Reid, who had been killed in the line of duty in the 1970s. *

Daily News staff writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.