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DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer

A widow's grief was evident in Judy Cassidy's demeanor as she prepared to present a remembrance bouquet during the May 2008 Living Flame Memorial service at Franklin Square honoring fallen police officers and firefighters.

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Posted on Sun, Jul. 5, 2009

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Life after the death of Phila. Police Officer Charles Cassidy

They'd been having car troubles, too. "He always paid cash for cars, and never bought anything with less than 100,000 miles on it," she says. The blue Chevy sedan had been hobbled: The driver's-side window didn't go down, the air-conditioning broke a while back. Now, the engine won't turn over.

Chuck's going to look for a replacement, starting tomorrow.

'It can't be Chuck . . . '

It is late morning. John's at school. She cleans up after breakfast, turns on the television, and dozes off on the living room couch.

The alarmed voices of reporters on a breaking news story waken her. A cop has been shot.

She calls her sister at Sue's Center City boutique. A saleswoman, Kelly, picks up; Sue's busy on another line. Judy and Kelly talk about the shooting.

"It can't be Chuck," Judy reassures herself. "He's in uniform." She gives Kelly a blow-by-blow account of what they're saying on TV.

A Dunkin' Donuts at Broad Street and 66th Avenue has been robbed. A man in a black hooded sweatshirt swaggered up to the counter, waving his gun, demanding money. An officer, off-duty, opened the door, saw the robber, and started to draw his gun, but the man whipped around and fired first. The cop, shot in the head, collapsed on the threshold. The man picked up the officer's gun and bolted.

Judy feels sick. What is wrong with this city that cops keeping getting shot? But it can't be Chuck; she doesn't have to worry.

Through the kitchen window, she notices a police car parked out front. She figures he must be headed to that house a few doors down. Whatever her neighbor had worried about must have amounted to something.

But now, an officer is walking up her path.

"That's weird," she thinks.

"I have to hang up," she tells Kelly.

She opens the door.

"Mrs. Cassidy?" he asks.

"Yes?"

"You need to come with me. Your husband has been in an accident."

"He wasn't shot in the head," she says. "That guy was off-duty. Chuck's working."

He doesn't argue. "I don't know what happened," he says. "You need to come with me."