Family lawyer describes body camera footage in Eddie Irizarry’s killing, as supporters rally for justice

The family of Eddie Irizarry, the 27-year-old man shot and killed by a Philadelphia police officer, viewed the police body-worn camera footage of the shooting this week, and were told the video will be released to the public within the next two weeks, lawyers said at a news conference Thursday.

Shaka Johnson, who is representing Irizarry’s family, said they met with District Attorney Larry Krasner and officials from his office on Wednesday to review the footage from the Aug. 13 shooting. The video, he said, is the strongest confirmation yet of what Irizarry’s family has maintained from the start: He was not a threat to the officer who killed him.

But, he said, the recordings do show Irizarry holding a pocket knife at his side when officers approached his car.

Here’s what the body cameras showed, according to Johnson:

Just before 12:30 p.m., Officer Mark Dial and his partner, who worked in North Philadelphia’s 24th Police District, saw Irizarry’s car driving erratically, hopping up onto the shoulder and weaving in the road. They followed him a few blocks and stopped their cruiser alongside Irizarry’s Toyota Corolla on the 100 block of East Willard Street in Kensington.

Both officers quickly got out of the marked cruiser, and immediately pulled their guns and pointed them at Irizarry’s car.

“Show us your hands!” the officers yelled.

Irizarry was seated in the driver’s seat with his windows rolled up. He was holding a 3-inch folded pocketknife by the side of his knee, Johnson said. The blade was open.

One officer yelled that Irizarry had a knife. According to Johnson, Dial told him to “drop the knife” and also yelled that he would shoot Irizarry.

Almost immediately, Dial fired multiple times at near point-blank range through the driver’s side window. He fired again through the windshield as he ran backward and circled around the car. Irizarry was shot six times throughout his body.

Johnson said Irizarry did not appear to threaten the officers with the knife and was holding it by his side. He said he had no time to follow the officer’s orders to drop it.

“He never got a chance to hear and respond to a police command,” he said. “He’s sitting in his car with the windows rolled up, and doesn’t speak English.”

The footage also showed that Dial’s partner, who police have not identified, told his supervisors at the scene that Irizarry had a knife in his hand, raised it, then sat up.

Johnson said that Irizarry never raised the knife.

“When he was shot, they initially couldn’t even find the knife that he had in his hand. They said something like, ‘It’s around here somewhere, it might have fallen down there,’” he said recounting the video.

It shows the partner did not tell supervisors that Irizarry got out of his car or “lunged” at officers — a narrative that police had shared with reporters at the scene. He told supervisors they saw Irizarry’s car driving erratically, at times driving onto the road shoulder, and followed him to try to run his license plate.

Dial did not speak about what happened to anyone on camera, Johnson said. He could be heard warning colleagues who approached him that he was on a “hot mic,” Johnson said, and waved people away with his hands.

Johnson said Krasner’s office told the family they would release the footage to the public within the next two weeks. The family requested that the footage be released unredacted.

Krasner declined to say whether the office intended to press criminal charges, Johnson said.

Jane Roh, a spokesperson for the DA’s Office, declined to comment on the ongoing inquiry and their discussions with Irizarry’s family.

Dial’s lawyer, Fortunato Perri, did not respond to a request for comment.

The news that the footage would be released was made just hours ahead of a rally and march, where people called for Dial to face criminal charges. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw announced last week that the department intended to fire Dial for insubordination after he has refused to speak with internal investigators about what happened.

Hours later, at Taller Puertorriqueño, the renowned Fairhill community center for Philadelphia Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico’s diaspora, about 80 to 90 people — later growing to approximately 200 — rallied to remember Irizarry, who moved to Philadelphia from Ponce, Puerto Rico, about seven years ago, and to push for prison time for Dial, the officer who killed the man affectionately called “Junito.”

White roses were handed out to people to carry to the site where Eddie Irizarry was shot on Aug. 14.

After the rally, the crowd of supporters marched to the 24th Police District, on the 3900 block of Whitaker Avenue, where Dial worked.

Speakers and participants at the rally and march said two weeks was far too long to wait for the footage.

“We’re asking Commissioner Danielle Outlaw to release the body cam footage now” said Rafael Alvarez Febo on a loudspeaker in front of the police station.

Irizarry’s father, Eddie Irizarry, addressed the line of uniformed officers standing in front of the police station where his son’s killer worked.

In Spanish, he said that he knows and respects many police officers, but that the department needed to get rid of the “rotten apples.”

“If you want the community’s respect, you have to earn it,” he said.

He closed his remarks by praying that God blessed every officer there every morning they went to work.

Starting Aug. 23, Outlaw has said, Dial is being suspended for 30 days with the intent to dismiss after he refused to cooperate with the department’s internal investigation.

But family and activists said Dial’s imminent firing is nowhere near sufficient redress and called on the District Attorney’s Office to charge Dial criminally and for Dial to receive a prison sentence.

Walking at the very front of the march was Nasheli Ortiz Ganzález, a young Puerto Rican woman who moved to Philly six years ago. She’s the second director of Taller Puertorriqueño and said it was important for the march to spread the word that a community member has been killed at the hands of a police officer.

“If a policeman can’t deescalate a situation, he shouldn’t be out in the street,” she said.

Rosaura Torres Thomas, the only Latina member of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission, joined the rally to show her support “as a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, and a Latina.”

”I have to be here to support la comunidad,” she said.

Torres Thomas was at the rally on her own, not representing the commission, she said. After the police narrative of Irizarry’s killing changed, Torres Thomas said she believed he had been murdered.

”We have to be here to support the family,” she said.

At last Wednesday’s news conference, Outlaw declined to say whether she thought the shooting of Irizarry was a crime, saying the investigation was ongoing. And she did not answer questions about where the initial erroneous narrative originated from, saying only that it came from an “internal source.”

Over roughly the last 50 years, prosecutors have charged 10 Philadelphia police officers with murder or manslaughter for on-duty killings. Of those cases, three have been brought since Krasner took office in 2018.

Most recently, last May, Krasner charged Edsaul Mendoza, the former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tommy “TJ” Siderio, with first-degree murder and other charges. Mendoza’s trial is scheduled to begin in May.

Staff writers Robert Moran, Josef Wirnshofer, and Nick Vadala contributed to this report.