Philadelphia to release police bodycam video of fatal shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. today

Philadelphia officials will publicly release body camera footage of the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. on Wednesday afternoon.

Mayor Jim Kenney, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, District Attorney Larry Krasner and other city officials will hold a press conference to “unveil a series of reform initiatives,” the city said in a press release. The bodycam footage and 911 calls of the incident will be released online afterward, the release said.

Wallace, a 27-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police while holding a knife during a confrontation in West Philadelphia on October 26. His family said he had bipolar disorder and was in the midst of a mental health crisis at the time.

The shooting and the moments that immediately preceded it also were recorded by a bystander with a cell phone. That video shows Wallace approach the officers with a knife as the officers draw their guns and order Wallace to drop his weapon. The officers, who did not have tasers, then fatally shoot Wallace, the bystander video shows.

The shooting led to demonstrations in Philadelphia as well as incidents of looting, property destruction and attacks on police officers. To combat the unrest, the city establish a curfew for several days last week.

In a press conference last week, family attorney Shaka Johnson said the body camera footage is about 30 to 40 seconds long and shows Wallace in an “obvious mental health crisis.”

“It seems to be a person in sort of a cloud or a stupor or just not appreciating the gravity of that particular moment, which would align perfectly with what the family was shouting, ‘he’s mental, he’s mental,'” he said. “He was behaving like a person who didn’t appreciate the gravity of the circumstances.”

Johnson also said that the family was not calling for the officers to be criminally charged with murder. He instead criticized the city for failing to provide the officers with less-lethal weapons, such as a taser.

“And here’s why, here’s why: They were improperly trained and did not have the proper equipment by which to effectuate their job,” Johnson said.

Johnson told reporters he has been in touch with District Attorney Krasner and that office is reviewing whether the officers will be charged with any crimes related to the shooting.

The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 President John McNesby said the union’s review of the footage and audio showed officers retreated for “nearly 50 seconds” and ordered Wallace to drop his knife “more than 20 times” before shooting.

A joint statement released Friday by the mayor, district attorney, and police commissioner and the Wallace family said the timing of the release — after the national election — “is in the best interest of our city and its residents.”

“The collective hope of our local government and the Wallace family is that releasing the recordings on November 4 will provide enough time to calm tensions and for the recordings to be released in the most constructive manner possible,” the statement said.