Questions abound after police kill Black man
PHILADELPHIA» Police leaders struggled to answer questions Tuesday about what led to the death of Walter Wallace under more than a dozen rounds fired by two Philadelphia officers who say he refused calls to put down a knife in a confrontation that led to unrest in the predominantly Black neighborhood.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw deferred many questions at a news conference about events before Monday afternoon’s shooting, including what officers knew when they responded to the call, whether or how many times they had interacted with Wallace before, and whether any information had been given to officers about mental health concerns.
Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said he could confirm that police received a call about a man screaming and that he was armed with a knife. The two officers each fired at least seven rounds — at least 14 total shots — but could not say how many times Wallace was struck.
The officers had not been interviewed as of Tuesday
afternoon, Outlaw said. Neither officer had a Taser or similar device, with Outlaw saying the department has previously asked for funding to equip more officers with those devices.
Police arrested at least 91 people during unrest Monday night and Tuesday morning, with three people being cited for failing to disperse and about a dozen being charged with assault of an officer. Police had previously said 30 officers were injured in the unrest.
Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr., told The Philadelphia Inquirer that his son appeared to have been
shot 10 times. He said his son was also a father, was on medication and struggled with his mental health.
“Why didn’t they use a Taser?” he asked.
Officers had been called to the predominantly Black Cobbs Creek neighborhood in west Philadelphia on reports of a man with a weapon, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman.
Officers said they found Wallace holding a knife and ordered him to drop the weapon several times. Wallace advanced toward the officers, who fired several times, Little said.
In the video, a woman and at least one man follow Wallace, trying to get him to listen to officers, as he briskly walks across the street and between cars. The woman, identified by family members as Wallace’s mother, screams and throws something at an officer after her son is shot and falls to the ground.
The video does not make it clear whether he was in fact holding a knife, but witnesses said he was.
Wallace was hit in the shoulder and chest, Little said, but she would not say how many times he was shot or the number of times officers fired. One of the officers drove him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, she said.
No officers or bystanders were injured in the initial confrontation, Little said. The names of the officers who fired the shots, and their races, were not immediately disclosed. Both were wearing body cameras and were taken off street duty during the investigation.
Neighbors and witnesses soon gathered Monday night on the block of Locust Street where the shooting occurred, yelling that police didn’t have to shoot Wallace and didn’t have to fire so many shots.
Outlaw went to the scene Monday and spoke to neighbors, and Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, and Outlaw said they would hold a meeting soon to talk with the community about the shooting and other concerns.
“I heard and felt the anger of the community,” Outlaw said in a statement, adding that the video “raises many questions” and that “those questions will be fully addressed by the investigation.”
Hundreds of people later took to the streets in west Philadelphia into the wee hours of Tuesday, with interactions between protesters and police turning violent at times, the Inquirer reported. Video showed many yelling at officers and crying.
Dozens of protesters gathered at a nearby park and chanted “Black lives matter.”
Police cars and dumpsters were set on fire as police struggled to contain the crowds. More than a dozen officers, many with batons in hand, formed a line as they ran down 52nd Street. The crowd largely dispersed then.
Thirty officers were injured, most of them from thrown objects such as bricks and rocks, according to police. One officer had a broken leg and other injur ies af ter she was struck by a pickup truck, police said. The other injured officers were treated and released.
The 52nd Street corridor was also the site of protests against police brutality at the end of May, after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police.