Philadelphia police commissioner Danielle Outlaw clarified statements relating to the death of a 27-year-old man who was shot by a police officer after initial accounts differed from body-camera footage. Initial information said that after a brief car chase, a man wielding a knife got out of his car and lunged at an officer, who shot and killed him, police said at the scene. At a news conference on Wednesday, Officials said the man was still in his car when the officer shot him. “I understand and want to acknowledge the hurt and confusion that family and community members can experience when details of investigations change, and especially when they change in a very public way,” Outlaw said. “I also understand that the information I’m about to provide will raise additional questions.” reports the New York Times. Family members identified the person who was killed as Eddie Irizarry, 27, a quiet and withdrawn man who, they said, liked to tinker with motorcycles and was being treated for serious mental illness, including schizophrenia.
Outlaw provided this account of what the department now says occurred: Shortly after noon on Monday, two officers were sitting in a marked police car when they saw a Toyota Corolla driving erratically in the Kensington neighborhood. The officers followed the car as it turned the wrong way down a one-way street and watched it pull into a parking spot. The officers approached the car from different sides. The officer on the passenger side tried to open the door, then alerted the officer on the driver’s side that the man in the car had a weapon. The officer on the driver’s side then fired “multiple times into the vehicle,” killing the man. Peter Marrero, a detective, said two knives were found in the car: a “kitchen-style knife” and a “serrated folding knife.” Irizarry shared that her brother did carry a pocketknife everywhere he went but “always as a tool, not as a weapon.”
Comentarios