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We told y’all that Philadelphia was gonna turn up if the cop who fatally shot Eddie Irizarry wasn’t held responsible.
As BOSSIP previously reported, former Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial had the murder charges against him dismissed by Municipal Court Judge Wendy L. Pew this week and the reaction from the public has been swift and unrelenting.
According to 6ABC, a peaceful protest in the form of a march from City Hall to the Criminal Justice Center was held calling for justice for Irizarry. By nightfall, however, the calls for accountability gave way to full-on rioting and looting.
“It’s important that we’re out here, that we are getting organized as people, talking to our neighbors because it’s going to happen again if we don’t demand change and fight for it now,” said Xiomara Torres, who helped organize the event. “I also think this isn’t an issue isolated to one individual Mark Dial. It’s a systemic issue.”
There will inevitably be people arguing and debating the morality of such behavior, however, at this point, it should be abundantly clear that allowing police officers to wantonly kill whoever they want with no consequences will come at a cost.
Interim Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Stanford made it clear that the protests had nothing to do with the looting.
“What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and make an attempt to destroy our city,” said Stanford.
During a second night of looting, 6ABC reports that 18 state-run liquor stores were picked clean but no employees were hurt. For those who lack the ability to tell one thing from another, these stores were owned and operated by the state of Pennsylvania. The state could save themselves time, money, and headache by simply giving a damn about police violence against citizens. At this time, it appears that they would rather cut off their noses to spite their faces.
Amid the unrest, a Philadelphia influencer went viral for live-streaming the riots on social media.
The Philly Voice reports that influencer “Meatball”, whose real name is Dayjia Blackwell, is facing six felony charges and two misdemeanors after she documented this week’s looting and rioting to her 190,000 followers.
The 21-year-old was trending during the melee until she was seen being arrested leading to tweets urging police to “free Meatball.”
The Voice reports that she’s since been released.
