Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial has been charged with murder in the shooting death of Eddie Irizarry. NBC10’s Johnny Archer has more on what happened.
What to Know
- Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial, 27, is charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression in connection to the death of Eddie Irizarry.
- Eddie Irizarry was shot and killed on Aug. 14 during a traffic stop in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood.
- The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office released body-worn camera footage of the deadly shooting on Friday.
Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial has been charged with the murder of Eddie Irizarry, officials announced Friday. The District Attorney's Office also released body-worn camera footage of the deadly shooting.
Dial is charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression.
Dial, 27, surrendered Friday morning ahead of the charges.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
"We intend to vigorously defend him against the charges," Dial's attorney Fortunato Perri said. "Despite what has been portrayed to the media, the facts will unmistakably show that Officer Mark Dial was legally justified in discharging his weapon while fearing for his life."
Dial was arraigned Friday afternoon. He posted 10 percent of $500,000 bail.
Bodycam footage released after attorneys, family viewed it
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and members of his office's Special Investigations Unit released unedited videos of the shooting from police body-worn camera on Friday.
"These videos speak for themselves," Krasner said. "The law and the jury instructions in Pennsylvania, the definitions of these offenses, are supported by this and other evidence. And that is why we have charged ex-officer Dial with these charges."
The shooting took place on Aug. 14 shortly after noon.
Investigators said Dial and his partner followed Irizarry's car in the city's Kensington neighborhood.
Irizarry pulled into a parking spot along the 100 block of East Willard Street after traveling in the wrong direction down the street, investigators said.
The officers then stopped their vehicle parallel to Irizarry's car, exited and approached.
The bodycam video shows Officer Dial and his partner getting out of their vehicle with their guns drawn and approaching Irizarry's car. Investigators said Irizarry was holding a small, open folding knife against his thigh. He then rolled up the driver's side window, according to officials.
Dial's partner repeatedly yells "show me your hands" before appearing to say, "he's got a knife."
"I will f-----g shoot you," Dial shouts at Irizarry, who remains seated in the vehicle.
Only a few seconds later, Dial fires six shots, shattering the driver's side glass and repeatedly shooting Irizarry at close range as he moves toward the front of the car.
Dial then reports "shots fired" on his radio and opens the driver side door. Irizarry lies bloody and motionless in his seat, softly moaning as Dial shouts, "Get your hand up right now!"
Dial repeatedly tells the unresponsive Irizarry to keep his hands up.
Dial and his partner then drag Irizarry's body out of his car and place him into their police vehicle. Dial tells his partner to stay with Irizarry's vehicle. Dial then drives Irizarry to Temple University hospital and places him on a stretcher as medics attend to him.
The bodycam footage shows Dial walking inside the hospital and washing his hands. On two occasions, he appears to dissuade other officers from approaching him.
Dial then speaks with a hospital staff member.
"Was there any signs of life? Was he doing anything? Talking? Breathing? Anything or no?" the staff member asks Dial.
"Barely," Dial responds.
Doctors pronounced Irizarry dead at the hospital a short time later.
His cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and the manner of death was listed as homicide, investigators said.
The District Attorney's Office also released a second bodycam video from Dial's partner. The audio in that video doesn't begin until after the shooting.
The second bodycam video also includes footage of Dial's partner reporting the incident to responding police officers.
"As I pull up, he starts freaking out. We get out. Mark comes on the driver side. I’m over here. I try to get the door open. I can’t. He pulls out a knife. I tell him, like, ‘Mark! Mark! He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife," Dial's partner says approximately six minutes after the shooting. "I saw his body come up like this and then Mark fired."
"Where's the knife? Is it in the car still?" the other officer asks.
"He does have one here. The one he had it might have fell in between somewhere but I don't want to touch nothing," Dial's partner says.
The two bodycam videos refute the initial police reports of the incident, attorneys for Irizarry's family announced just last week.
Attorneys Shaka Johnson and Kevin P. O'Brien both spoke at last week's new conference. They were joined by community leaders who called for justice. That event came more than a week after officials announced Dial's pending firing.
Last week, O'Brien and Johnson announced that Irizarry's family saw the police bodycam video of the shooting during a meeting with Krasner.
"Part of me was like, 'I can't,' but then I'm like, 'No, I have to,'" Irizarry's aunt, Zoraida Garcia, said. "And I got the strength to watch it. You guys are gonna see it. It's horrible."
The attorneys said Krasner's office assured them they were working to release the bodycam video to the public.
"The footage provides further irrefutable proof that the initial police narrative of this shooting was false," O'Brien said.
Attorney Johnson was joined by Irizarry's family during an Aug. 22 news conference in Center City. During that event, Johnson showed surveillance video of the deadly police shooting.
Johnson said he and Irizarry's family were able to obtain surveillance video from the community after they were initially unable to get the body worn camera video from city officials.
"I want to make it clear that the investigation into the shooting itself continues, along with the administrative investigation in which there may be additional disciplinary charges in the event that Officer Dial violated additional PPD policies," outgoing Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said while announcing her plan to fire Dial.
Outlaw's announcement came a day after surveillance video was released of Officer Dial shooting and killing Irizarry.
There are additional resources for people or communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Further information can be found here.
In their Aug. 16 news release correcting their initial report, police said Dial's partner alerted him that Irizarry had a "weapon" before Dial opened fire. O'Brien and Johnson later said none of the officers used the word "weapon," based on the bodycam footage, however.
“We heard one officer say to the other, ‘He’s got a knife and then we heard Officer Dial say, ‘drop the knife,'" Johnson said. "Because from a law enforcement standpoint, I want you all to be aware and clear, ‘weapon’ is much softer and kinder than ‘knife.’”
Initially, police officials said that Irizarry was outside of the vehicle while armed with a knife and had lunged at police before he was shot. Police later said on Aug. 16 that this information was not accurate however and instead he was inside the car and simply turned when he was shot and killed. Both the surveillance and bodycam videos show the officers firing at the vehicle only a few seconds after pulling it over. At no point was Irizarry outside of the car.
“He never raises that knife towards police officers or lunges at them. In fact, it really appears that he’s trying to put the knife away as police interact with him," O'Brien said.
Investigators claimed two knives "were observed inside the vehicle." Officials said these were a serrated folding knife and some type of kitchen knife.
O'Brien and Johnson said Irizarry was carrying a pocket knife that he used for work at the time of the shooting.
“When he’s told to drop the knife, he’s never given the opportunity to drop the knife and summarily shot before the police officer can really get the words out of his mouth that he’s asking for the knife to be dropped and I remind you this is a person who doesn’t speak English all that well," O'Brien said.
During the Aug. 22 news conference, Johnson criticized the initial account from police that they later said was inaccurate.
"When you look at this video, I want you to ask yourselves, look at it critically and ask yourselves, how, based on what you will soon see, could the narrative have ever been, this was a police chase? How could Ms. Reilly have ever taken to the podium as a spokesperson for the police department and said that Mr. Irizarry, Eddie, got out of that vehicle, wielded a knife, and I believe I heard Ms. Jasmine Reilly say, 'officers gave commands to drop the knife whilst Eddie was outside of the vehicle. He did not do that. He in fact lunged at police officers and then was shot.' We know that that is a patent lie. It is a fabrication. It did not happen that way at all," Johnson said.
Cpl. Jasmine Reilly is a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department who read the initial report of the shooting but was not the officer who created the actual report. It's still unknown who created the initial report. At no point in the second bodycam video does Dial's partner claim Irizarry "lunged" at officers or was outside of the vehicle during the incident.
During the Aug. 16 news conference, Outlaw said investigators knew their initial story was not accurate after watching body camera footage from the officers on the scene.
"The body-worn camera footage made it very clear that what we initially reported was not actually what happened," she said.
"I would call it misinformation," Outlaw said.
Outlaw was also asked where the initial "misinformation" came from.
"As I stated when asked that before, that is currently under an active investigation," Outlaw said. "I, again, have questions. I have the same questions."
Last week, Johnson said the police department's initial report wasn't a case of misinformation, but rather "conspiracy."
“This from the very beginning has been an onslaught of lies and fairy tales,” Johnson said.
O'Brien also criticized the length of time it took for Outlaw to publicly correct the initial police report.
"It took 30 hours from the shooting or from the initial remarks by the public information officer for the police to correct the false statements that Mr. Irizarry got out of the vehicle and lunged at police officers with a knife," O'Brien said. "We know now that didn’t happen.”
O'Brien also disputed Outlaw's statement that it takes a long time to download and view bodycam footage. O'Brien claimed he was told that an investigator with the Citizens Police Oversight Commission was on the scene and reviewed the bodycam footage within two hours of the shooting.
“Why it took another 28 hours for the police to correct that false narrative? I don’t know," O'Brien said. "I think everyone here, myself, and certainly the family, are extremely distressed and disappointed in the police department’s initial false narrative."
NBC10 reached out to Philadelphia police last week for a reaction to the comments made by Johnson and O'Brien. A spokesperson said they could not comment due to the ongoing investigation.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 President John McNesby released a statement on the charges against Officer Dial.
"Officer Mark Dial has the full support of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 as our attorneys continue to gather all the facts surrounding this tragic incident," McNesby wrote. "We ask the public to reserve judgement until all the evidence is presented during trial. Like any other individual facing allegations, Officer Dial is presumed innocent and looks forward to helping his attorneys prepare a vigorous defense against these serious criminal charges."
What we know about Eddie Irizarry
NBC10 Philadelphia's Miguel Martinez-Valle spoke with Irizarry's family. They said his primary language was Spanish and that he didn't understand or speak English well. They also said he had mental health illness. Johnson also spoke about Irizarry's mental health issues during the Aug. 22 news conference.
"That young man unfortunately doesn't speak a word of English and he battled with schizophrenia for many, many years," Johnson said.
Johnson said Irizarry had moved to the United States from Puerto Rico at the age of 19 and had never been in trouble with the law.
"This young man has never been arrested a day in his life," Johnson said. "He's never seen handcuffs, the inside of a jail cell. Ever in 27 years. Never had a negative encounter with police."
Irizarry's family members said they've always praised law enforcement and wanted to be part of the police force. The death of Irizarry and the police department's handling of the investigation -- so far -- has changed their stance.
Funeral services for Irizarry took place on Aug. 24 at Christ & St. Ambrose Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
Sign up for our Breaking newsletter to get the most urgent news stories in your inbox.
