Philadelphia police fatally shot a man in front of his loved ones firing over 10 times. Video / @AttorneyCrump via Twitter
More than a dozen people were arrested and more than 30 officers injured in protests stemming from the police shooting death of a black man they say refused their orders to drop a knife in a confrontation captured on video, Philadelphia police said today.
The man, identified by city officials as Walter Wallace, 27, was shot yesterday in an episode filmed by a bystander and posted on social media. Bystanders and neighbours complained that police fired excessive shots.
Wallace's father, Walter Wallace snr, 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 neighbourhood in west Philadelphia on reports of a man with a weapon, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokesperson.
People gather to protest against the shooting of the 27-year-old.
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.
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.
A police car burns during the protest.
Neighbours and witnesses soon gathered 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.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw went to the scene and spoke to neighbours, and both Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, and Outlaw said they would hold a meeting soon to talk to the community about the shooting and other concerns.
"I heard and felt the anger of the community," Outlaw said.
He added that the video "raises many questions" and that "those questions will be fully addressed by the investigation."
Fireworks explode in the sky during a protest in response to the police shooting.
Hundreds of people later took to the streets in west Philadelphia, 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 rubbish bins 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 injuries after she was struck by a pick-up truck, police said. The other injured officers were treated and released.
