https://www.instagram.com/tv/CG0bOq_Hs-v/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
[Warning: Video is disturbing.]
The family for a Pennsylvania man shot and killed by police called 911 for an ambulance, not a police response, their lawyer says.
“When you come to a scene where somebody is in a mental crisis, and the only tool you have to deal with it is a gun … where are the proper tools for the job?,” attorney Shaka Johnson said, according to NBC Washington.
As seen on video, Walter Wallace Jr., 27, was shot and killed by police in a confrontation Monday afternoon. Chief Police Inspector Frank Vanore said officers got a call regarding a man screaming and claiming to be armed with a knife. Two officials opened fire a total of at least 14 times. Vance did not say how many times Wallace was shot.
Wallace’s parents said police knew their son was having a mental health crisis because they had been to the residence three times that day.
In one incident, “they stood there and laughed at us,” Wallace’s mother Cathy Wallace said.
Walter Wallace was described by Johnson as a father of nine children. His wife was was scheduled for induced labor on Wednesday.
Cops have said Wallace had refused to drop to the knife.
Things turned ugly in Philadelphia on Monday and Tuesday night in the wake of another police shooting of a Black man. Two nights of looting and violence followed.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said that Wallace’s death is being investigated, and that in the past, she had asked for more funding for tasers.
“Unless you address the racism, the history of policing, slave catching, overseer officer, nothing is going to change until you address racism,” one local said in a community meeting, according to WPVI.
[Screengrab via _liljrizzy on Instagram]