Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said that a police officer who shot and killed a driver who was sitting in his car last week in north Philadelphia is being suspended and will be fired, the Guardian reports. Outlaw said officer Mark Dial will be suspended with intent to dismiss him for refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the August 14 shooting death of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry. Newly released surveillance video appeared on Wednesday to contradict the police department’s initial narrative of events. Irizarry was shot and killed in his car in the Kensington area. In a press conference shortly after the incident, Corporal Jasmine Reilly told reporters that Irizarry had stepped out of his vehicle “with a … knife” following a traffic stop and that officers gave “multiple commands for him” before Irizarry “lunged at the officers."
“One of the officers discharged his weapon multiple times,” Reilly said. Two days after the incident, Outlaw said the initial account of events was not what actually happened.. She said Irizarry was “driving erratically” and that he was going the wrong way down a one-way street before he pulled into a parking spot. Two officers then approached Irizzary, who was inside, not outside, his vehicle when he was shot by one of the officers, according to the revised police statement. “The body-worn camera footage made it very clear what we initially reported was not actually what happened,” Outlaw said. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Outlaw said the initial information was “generated internally” and that officials are “backtracking” to determine how the narrative was created.