Philly police shooting victim's family views bodycam footage
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Attorneys for Eddie Irizarry's family say prosecutors have promised to publicly release body camera footage of last month's deadly police shooting in Kensington.
Driving the news: The family viewed bodycam footage of the Aug. 14 shooting for the first time Wednesday, following pressure to make the video public, family attorney Shaka Johnson said.
- Prosecutors told the family they'll release the footage to the public within two weeks, said Johnson during a news conference Thursday.
- Activists and community leaders are holding a march later on Thursday to demand the bodycam video and charges against the officer who shot and killed Irizarry.
What they're saying: The family is asking for the roughly 22 minutes of footage from the body cameras of the two officers at the scene to be made public without redactions, Johnson said. They want the public to fully understand what happened and how officers responded afterward, he added.
- Attorney Kevin O'Brien said the footage shows Irizarry was not an "imminent threat" to officers and never had a chance to comply with their orders before he was shot.
The other side: The Police Department did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Zoom in: The bodycam footage, similar to surveillance video released last week, shows officer Mark Dial shot Irizarry while he was sitting inside his vehicle within seconds of arriving on the scene, the attorneys say.
- Johnson said the bodycam footage also captured officers being intentionally guarded with what they said and reminding each other that they were being recorded.
- He said Dial's partner was captured on footage making it known he was not the shooter and claiming that Irizarry wielded a knife toward officers from inside the car, which the attorneys say the footage contradicts.
Catch up quick: Police said that officers pursued Irizarry's vehicle because he was driving erratically in North Philadelphia. Irizarry eventually parked on East Willard Street after traveling down it the wrong way, according to police.
- Philadelphia police changed their story about the shooting after body camera footage revealed that Irizarry was seated in his vehicle, not outside of it lunging toward an officer, when he was shot.
- Investigators have said they're still looking into the internal source of the flawed initial information.
Meanwhile, Outlaw announced last week that Dial, who has been on the force for five years, has been suspended for 30 days and the department intends to fire him for insubordination after he refused to speak to internal affairs about the shooting.
- Irizarry's family has said they want Dial charged criminally.