Ex-Philly cop sentenced, paroled after verdict in lethal traffic stop
Ex-Philadelphia officer sentenced and immediately paroled after conviction in traffic stop shooting
A former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a motorist during a traffic stop was sentenced and granted parole Thursday by a judge, eliciting condemnations from the city’s district attorney and the victim’s family.
A jury in May acquitted Dial, 29, of murder charges, and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and possessing an instrument of crime in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry.
Judge Glenn Bronson sentenced Mark Dial to 9 1/2 months in jail, and immediately granted Dial parole because he had already been jailed for 10 months following his arrest in 2023.
Irizarry’s family expresses anger following ruling
Following the hearing, Irizarry’s family members expressed outrage at the decision.
“Again, unbelievable, again,” said Irizarry’s aunt Ana Cintron. “My nephew’s life as if it didn’t matter at all. He literally took his life, there was more than enough evidence. Six seconds, for crying out loud. And he gets to go home again.”
“If it was me, and I would have committed this crime, I would have been in years. I would have been doing life in prison,” said another of Irizarry’s aunts, Zoraida Garcia. “He was a cop, so he gets the okay.”
Dial thought Irizarry had a gun when he approached Irizarry’s car after officers spotted the car being driven erratically and followed it for several blocks before it turned the wrong way down a one-way street and stopped.
Police body camera video of the shooting shows Dial getting out of a police SUV, striding over to Irizarry’s car and firing his weapon six times at close range through the rolled-up driver’s side window.
The video shows Irizarry holding a seven-inch knife before he was shot.
Another officer yelled “knife” as they had approached the vehicle, according to the video, but Dial’s attorneys disputed those assertions, saying the other officer yelled “Gun!,” that the knife resembled a gun and that Dial had acted lawfully and in self-defense.
Dial was released from custody in 2024 after prosecutors withdrew a first-degree murder charge.
