A judge dismissed all charges, including a murder count, against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver who had a knife, agreeing with defense lawyers who said the officer could have feared for his life.
The municipal judge ruled after a courtroom packed with police and relatives of Eddie Irizarry watched about 20 minutes of harrowing video of the brief traffic stop that led to the death of the 27-year-old. The defense argued that Officer Mark Dial acted in self-defense when he fired his weapon at close range through the rolled-up driver’s side window of Irizarry’s sedan on Aug. 14.
Dial’s partner, Officer Michael Morris, testified that he saw the driver holding a knife with a black metal handle that could have looked like a gun. He said Irizarry was holding the knife against his leg and started to raise it as Dial approached the car, which had stopped the wrong way on a one-way residential street.
Full story: Eddie Irizarry’s relatives distraught after charges dropped against officer who fatally shot him
How do we hold police accountable? If blatant murder on camera is insufficient evidence, then how do we hold police accountable? I am from Philadelphia. This is not a new story for this city or any place in America. This happens every day. On average in 2022, police killed 3.3 American citizens every day. Many of these cases resemble this horrible video: police officers act in extreme haste, often not announcing themselves or giving verbal warnings of any kind before emptying their weapons into children and adults alike. In the rare event when these cases are brought to court, police are almost never found guilty of their accused crimes. A shoot first ask questions later mentality has plagued communities around the country resulting in the deaths of unarmed, non-threatening, law-abiding Americans who more often than not, are Non-White. So I am genuinely asking, if this type of shooting is deemed acceptable under our current legal standards, how do we hold police accountable when they commit murder?