The Free

Revolt Across Philadelphia: Black Liberation and the Police Murder of Eddie Irizarry

Report and analysis from Philadelphia on the recent rebellion following the police murder of Eddie Irizarry.

/from thefreeonline on 7th Oct 2023 by Philly Anti-Cap via ItsGoingDown

On Monday August 14th 2023, Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial shot and killed Eddie Irizarry as he sat in his car.

Police initially lied saying that Eddie attacked the cop with a knife, but video footage showed that Eddie was shot in mere seconds while seated in his car with the window up.

Following this Dial was suspended for 30 days pending termination. In early September Dial was charged with a number of crimes including murder but the presiding judge would eventually dismiss his charges.

The cops who attended the court date in uniform cheered and celebrated when the charges were dropped.

On September 26th, that same day Eddie’s family and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (alongside Black leftist groups like Black Alliance for Peace and the W.E.B. DuBois Movement School) organized a peaceful march through Center City protesting the decision.

That demonstration dispersed after a couple hours but was followed by looting, initially in Center City before spreading to West, North, and Northeast Philly as the night went on.

The Black liberation movement is alive!

Those who say it’s dead are either racist or not in the street and these revolts are the proof. Although the number of people in the streets was smaller than in 2020, there was widespread revolt across Philadelphia.

Police killed Eddie Irizarry, a non-Black Puerto Rican, and Black people responded with revolt. Similarly in 2020 in Kenosha, WI when Kyle Rittenhouse killed two white people in the midst of a riot against police and later had his charges dropped, Black people rioted in the Bay Area.

These are both examples of a Black consciousness that recognizes anti-Black systems regardless of if they are targeting Black people in a specific instance.

Here in Philly looters and rioters were well prepared.

People were overwhelmingly masked, wearing black clothes, and many were brandishing tools. The looting was organized spontaneously over social media the same day as it took place.