Fired Philadelphia officer leaves jail to await trial after charges reduced in traffic stop death
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a motorist during a traffic stop was released from jail Thursday to await trial after prosecutors withdrew a first-degree murder charge.
The decision comes after defense lawyers for former officer Mark Dial complained that prosecutors had not turned over an expert witness report they commissioned months ago and planned to use at trial.
Dial will now face third-degree murder and other charges in the death last year of Eddie Irizarry, 27, who was fatally shot as he sat in his car. It’s the latest in a series of legal twists and turns in the case, which has seen the charges filed, thrown out, refiled and now reduced. Court records show that Dial, 28, was released after posting $200,000 bail on Thursday.
The move outraged Irizarry’s relatives.
“An officer can kill somebody here and get away with it,” an aunt, Zoraida Garcia, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The trial date has been pushed back until May to give the defense time to respond to the expert report on Pennsylvania’s use-of-force law.
Police body camera footage played at Dial’s preliminary hearing shows Irizarry holding a knife near his right leg as police approached. The officers had pulled him over on a residential street after a short pursuit prompted by erratic driving.