Mark Dial was charged with murder and other counts after surveillance video and police body camera footage showed him opening fire multiple times as Eddie Irizarry sat in his car.
The parties were brought before a judge in a Philadelphia courtroom for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.
Dial's partner, Officer Michael Morris, testified Tuesday that the pair had been following Irizarry, who was allegedly driving erratically, turned the wrong way down a one-way street and stopped. "I screamed that he had a knife," said Morris, adding the knife had a black metal handle that could have been mistaken for a gun.
Later, on cross-examination with the defense, Morris seemed to waver as to whether he said gun and then knife. Defense had argued that from Dial's vantage point, the knife had the appearance of a gun, and that the fact Dial was backing away as he was firing showed he was retreating, arguing it was not malice.
Sitting at the defense table, Dial dabbed his eyes with a tissue as prosecutors played video of the fatal shooting from Morris' body-worn camera. District Attorney Larry Krasner has called bodycam videos from Morris and Dial"crucial evidence in the case," saying they"speak for themselves.""When police officers ordered him to show his hands, he instead produced a weapon and pointed it at an armed police officer," lawyer Brian McMonagle told reporters this month.
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