Philadelphia police officer charged with murder in fatal shooting

A Philadelphia police officer was charged with murder after he fatally shot a 27-year-old man who was in his car at near point-blank range, prosecutors announced Friday, weeks after top police officials announced that body-camera footage of the killing showed a different account than what the officer initially described.

In addition to the first-degree murder charge, the officer, Mark Dial, was charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment of another person and official oppression in the shooting death of Eddie Irizarry, prosecutors said at a news conference Friday.

Dial fatally shot Irizarry around noon Aug. 14 after what police initially said was a car chase ending in Irizarry lunging at them with a knife. But police officials said two days later that body-camera footage showed that the man was still in his car when the officer shot him. The fatal shooting and changing account sparked community anger and protests.

In an unusual move, Judge Christian DiCicco of Philadelphia Municipal Court set bail for Dial at $500,000. According to court records, a third party posted the requisite $50,000 deposit on Dial’s behalf, allowing him to be released.

Family members have described Irizarry as a quiet man who liked to work on motorcycles and was being treated for serious mental illness, including schizophrenia. He had moved to Philadelphia about seven years ago from Puerto Rico and had difficulty understanding English, his family said.

Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney, said at a news conference Friday that “the videos speak for themselves,” describing the body-camera footage, which was released to the public Friday.

“Firing six consecutive shots at close range at a vital part of the body of a person, under the law, is strongly supportive, together with other evidence, of all of these charges,” he said.

Dial, 27, a five-year veteran of the department who was suspended from the Police Department in August with intent to dismiss, turned himself in to police Friday morning.

Shortly after noon Aug. 14, two officers, Dial and his partner, whose name was not released, were sitting in a marked police car when they saw a Toyota Corolla they said was driving erratically in the Kensington neighborhood in northern Philadelphia. The officers then followed the car as it turned the wrong way down a one-way street and watched it pull into a parking spot midway down the block.

The footage, from cameras worn by Dial and his partner, shows the officers approaching the car from the passenger and driver sides.

As a police cruiser approaches Irizarry’s parked car, Dial’s body-camera footage shows him racing out of the passenger seat and within seconds telling Irizarry, with an expletive, that he “will shoot” him and quickly firing his gun multiple times through the driver’s side window. Dial calls in “shots fired, shots fired” to his radio, and Irizarry can be seen covered in blood, his head bobbing.

Dial instructs Irizarry to “keep those hands up right where I can see them” as Irizarry starts to slump over in his seat.

“Mark, we’re going to have to get him out,” Dial’s partner says.

Dial then drags Irizarry out of the driver’s seat, and the second officer comes and assists him as they carry Irizarry into the police cruiser, where they shove him into the back seat. Neighbors can be seen watching from their front steps. Dial instructs the other officer to stay with Irizarry’s car “so no one grabs anything.”

When Dial arrives at a hospital, he appears to take Irizarry by the belt and pulls him out of the car. Hospital personnel can be heard saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” what appeared to be in response to the way he pulled Irizarry, as the personnel load him onto a gurney and one member of the attending staff begins CPR.

Irizarry was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day.

Investigators found two knives in Irizarry’s car, a kitchen knife and a serrated folding knife, police have said. Irizarry’s sister told The New York Times in an interview that her brother carried a pocketknife everywhere he went but “always as a tool, not as a weapon.”

In a statement to The New York Times, Brian McMonagle, a lawyer for Dial, said the decision to charge his client with murder was “appalling.”

After a high-speed chase, McMonagle said Dial and his partner approached the car and ordered Irizarry to show his hands. McMonagle said that the officers believed Irizarry was taking out a weapon.

McMonagle said that Dial shot Irizarry in self-defense. “He then rushed the driver to the hospital in an effort to save his life.”

The case is the fourth in which Krasner, a progressive district attorney who has clashed with conservatives for years over his approach to crime, has charged a police officer involved in an on-duty shooting since he took office in 2018.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.