Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – What We Know About the Death of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia

Introduction To This Series:

This post is one installment in an ongoing news series: a “living history” of the current national and international uprising for justice.

Today’s movement descends directly from the many earlier civil rights struggles against repeated injustices and race-based violence, including the killing of unarmed Black people. The posts in this series serve as a timeline of the uprising that began on May 26, 2020, the day after a Minneapolis police officer killed an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck. The viral video of Floyd’s torturous suffocation brought unprecedented national awareness to the ongoing demand to truly make Black Lives Matter in this country.

The posts in this series focus on stories of the particular killings that have spurred the current uprising and on the protests taking place around the USA and across the globe. Sadly, thousands of people have lost their lives to systemic racial, gender, sexuality, judicial, and economic injustice. The few whose names are listed here represent the countless others lost before and since. Likewise, we can report but a few of the countless demonstrations for justice now taking place in our major cities, small towns, and suburbs.

What We Know About the Death of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia

By Jenny Gross, New York Times

October 29, 2020

On Monday afternoon, two Philadelphia police officers fatally shot Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man who was armed with a knife. In the nights that followed, protesters clashed with officers in the streets, and city officials imposed a curfew to try to curb the unrest.

The protests in Philadelphia were the latest in a series of demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality that have played out across the country since the spring

The shooting was captured on video.

In an encounter that was captured in a video that circulated on social media, Mr. Wallace, holding a knife, walked toward the officers, who quickly moved backward and aimed their guns at him. In the video, someone yells repeatedly at Mr. Wallace to “put the knife down.” The camera points toward the ground as about a dozen shots are heard. After Mr. Wallace falls to the ground, his mother screams and rushes to his body.

Mr. Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr., said his son had struggled with mental health issues and was on medication, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. “Why didn’t they use a Taser?” he said. “His mother was trying to defuse the situation.”

For several nights after the shooting, hundreds of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against what they saw as the excessive use of force by the police against people of color.

Nearly a dozen miles from where crowds were protesting on Wednesday night, businesses including a Walmart, a Lowe’s and a Five Below were looted.

From Monday night through Thursday, 57 officers were injured in clashes with protesters and 212 people were arrested on charges including assault on police and burglary, the authorities said.

The presidential candidates weighed in.

The shooting and its aftermath, which came days before the election in a swing state, reignited tensions in a country that was already on edge. The responses from President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., his opponent, underscored the deep divisions in the United States.

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