Black Lives Matter rioters in Philadelphia are destroying the city in the name of a man with a sordid criminal past. Walter Wallace Jr., the African American man who was fatally shot by police officers after he ran at them while brandishing a knife, was known to have an extensive criminal record. He assaulted his own mother, assaulted a police officer and threatened to murder the mother of one of his eight children.
On Monday, Oct. 26, Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) officers responded to reports of an African American male assaulting an elderly female woman at her home in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia. Upon arriving at the scene, they saw Wallace holding a knife, while the man's mother could be heard yelling from inside the house, trying to stop Wallace from attacking the police officers.
The two police officers who arrived to investigate the situation repeatedly told Wallace to stop approaching the officers and to put the knife down. Wallace did not listen to the warnings. He is fatally shot after trying to attack the officers.
Following Wallace's death, Philadelphia erupted into rioting and civil unrest. The first demonstrations that broke out on Monday night quickly turned violent, with at least 30 officers sustaining injuries during the first night.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said that a man in a pickup truck intentionally ran over one police sergeant. The police sergeant had to be hospitalized for a severely broken leg.
Ninety-one rioters were arrested on the first night alone, 76 of whom were taken in for burglary. (Related: Rioters injure 30 police officers in Philadelphia as thousands of thieves LOOT over 30 retail stores.)
Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how police officers are fleeing from left-wing cities like Seattle are leaving en masse before those cities collapse into anarchy and lawlessness.
Investigation reveals Wallace pled guilty to several crimes
Court records uncovered by journalists reveal that Wallace had a very extensive criminal history, with his first arrest in 2013.
In 2013, Wallace's mother filed a protective order against him. He allegedly violated this order when he punched his mother in the face, threw water at her and then threatened to come back to her house with a gun to shoot her. During that year, he also pled guilty to assault and resisting arrest after he punched a PPD officer in the face.
In 2016, Wallace was implicated in a robbery. During this incident, he allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck and held a gun to her head. The next year, he pled guilty to robbery, assault and possessing an instrument of crime. He was sentenced to 11 to 23 months in prison.
In 2019, he was charged with resisting arrest. The police officer who arrested him said Wallace kicked the windows and door panels of a police patrol car.
In March of this year, he allegedly threatened the mother of one of his children over the phone, saying, “I'll shoot you and that house up.” At the time of his death, he was awaiting trial for this incident.
Wallace was also known to be an aspiring hip-hop artist. His social media accounts are filled with videos of him performing songs about guns and shooting people, including police officers. Many of his songs were also about social justice and supposed police injustice.
Walter Wallace's supposedly “struggled with mental illness”
Shaka Johnson, a lawyer representing Wallace's family, said that Wallace had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that as a treatment, his doctor prescribed him with lithium.
“The man was suffering. When you come to a scene where somebody is in a mental crisis, [and] the only tool you have to deal with it is a gun, that's a problem,” said Johnson, referring to the fact that armed police officers arrived at the scene of the incident, ignoring the fact that Wallace was brandishing a knife and threatening to harm others.
Johnson said that Wallace's relatives called the police several times on Monday. During the final call, they asked for an ambulance instead. The police got there before the ambulance did because Wallace was experiencing a violent mental episode and officers feared for the safety of other people.
Anthony Fitzhugh and Sam Wallace, Walter's cousins, criticized the fact that their relative was shot at least seven times. They believe that the officers were advised that Walter was experiencing a terrible mental health episode, and they believe that the officers should have used their tasers instead of their firearms.
Outlaw countered this argument by saying that the two officers that responded to the incident were not carrying tasers and that not all officers in the city are issued them.
Despite their criticisms of how the police handled the situation, Fitzhugh and Wallace also believe that Black Lives Matter should not take advantage of their cousin's death by destroying Philadelphia.
“Everybody out there that's looting, they're thieves. They're opportunists,” said Fitzhugh. “And they're stealing because they have the opportunity to go and steal. Do not put my cousin's name on that. Not one of his family members are out there participating in any of it. Not one.”
Learn more about how Black Lives Matter is using the unfortunate death of a person with a mental illness as an excuse to destroy Philadelphia by reading the latest articles regarding the civil unrest in that city at Rioting.news.
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