The Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a man sitting in his car last month surrendered to authorities Friday morning on murder charges.
Mark Dial, the officer accused of fatally shooting Eddie Irizarry Jr. on Aug. 14, was also charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment of another person and official oppression, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said during a press conference where he showed unedited body camera video from the incident.
“These videos speak for themselves,” Krasner said.
Originally, police had said that Irizarry was outside the car and was killed after lunging at police with a knife, but two days later the department acknowledged that he was shot while inside his car. Irizarry’s family released security camera footage that showed him fatally shot by police in his car just seconds after Dial exited his cruiser.
Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial, center, surrenders to police in the wake of the shooting death of Eddie Irizarry Jr. Dial is accused of shooting the man in his car on Aug. 14, 2023.
WPVI
The district attorney’s office showed footage from the body-worn cameras of Dial and a second officer who was at the scene. Irizarry’s family and their counsel had previously seen the videos and requested that they be played in their entirety, he said.
Krasner warned that the footage “will in some ways be traumatic.”
The footage shows Dial getting out of his cruiser and approaching Irizarry’s car with his gun drawn. “I will f—— shoot you,” he says, before firing into the front driver’s seat where Irizarry was seated. Prior to shots being fired, an officer can be heard yelling at Irizarry to show his hands.
Dial fired six shots “at close range,” Krasner said. The DA was unable to answer how many times Irizarry was struck, pending a final autopsy report.
Dial can also be seen pulling a bloodied Irizarry out of the car and then, with the second officer at the scene, carrying him to their police cruiser. The second officer can be heard radioing that they are “scooping” a man to bring to a hospital.
The second officer has not been charged in the incident and his name is not being released at this time, Krasner said.
Bail has not been set yet, Krasner said. A preliminary hearing is expected to happen Friday, he said.
“To charge officer Mark Dial with murder is abhorrent,” Brian McMonagle, one of Dial’s attorneys, told reporters following the surrender Friday morning. “The undisputed facts of the case are that an individual made an illegal turn right in front of police officers, took off at a high rate of speed, and then tried to evade officers by going down a one-way street the wrong way, tried to hide from them.”
“And when police officers ordered him to show his hands, he instead produced a weapon and pointed it at an armed police officer,” he continued.
The lawyers for the family of Eddie Irizarry released video footage from the police shooting on Aug. 14, 2023.
Obtained by ABC News
Dial has already been suspended for 30 days and the city’s police commissioner said she intended to fire the officer at the end of the suspension.
Then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who has since left the department, said on Aug. 23 that an administrative investigation found Dial violated department rules against “insubordination” by allegedly refusing to obey “proper orders from a superior officer.” She said the administrative investigation also accuses Dial of “conduct unbecoming” an officer for “failure to cooperate in any departmental investigation.”
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing Philadelphia police officers, said last month it was standing by Dial.
“Officer Dial has the full support of the Fraternal Order of Police and we continue to review the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragic incident,” Dial’s lawyer, Fortunato N. Perri, Jr., said in a statement last month to ABC News.
ABC News’ Alex Faul contributed to this report.
