Ex-Philadelphia officer sentenced and immediately paroled after conviction in traffic stop shooting
Jul 17, 2025, 4:41 PM | Updated: 5:08 pm
PHILADELPHIA (AP) 鈥� A former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a motorist during a traffic stop was sentenced and granted parole Thursday by a judge, eliciting condemnations from the city’s district attorney and the victim’s family.
Judge Glenn Bronson sentenced Mark Dial to 9 1/2 months in jail, and immediately granted Dial parole because he had already been jailed for 10 months following his arrest in 2023.
A jury in May acquitted Dial, 29, of murder charges, and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and possessing an instrument of crime in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry.
Brian McMonagle, Dial’s lawyer, said the judge did the right thing for a 鈥渄edicated public servant鈥� who 鈥渞isked his life every day for perfect strangers.鈥�
District Attorney Larry Krasner said the judge went 鈥渨ay below鈥� sentencing guidelines in handing down a sentence that set Dial free. The low end of the standard range of sentencing guidelines for the conviction was 4 1/2 to nine years in prison, he said.
Krasner declined to criticize the judge but said he was 鈥渄eeply disappointed with a verdict that I think makes people lose faith in the criminal justice system.鈥�
Zoraida Garcia, an aunt of Irizarry’s, told reporters after the sentencing that if she had committed the crime, 鈥淚 would have been doing life in prison. But he鈥檚 a cop, so he gets the OK.鈥� Another aunt, Ana Cintron, said, 鈥渕y nephew鈥檚 life doesn鈥檛 matter at all.”
In court, Bronson said the shooting was not 鈥渁 classic voluntary manslaughter case,鈥� that Dial’s conduct was 鈥渄emonstrably out of character鈥� and that Dial was not a threat to the public, the Philadelphia Inquirer .
He also said that Dial, after shooting Irizarry six times, rushed Irizarry to the hospital.
鈥淚鈥檝e never seen that happen in a voluntary manslaughter case,鈥� he said.
Dial’s lawyers have insisted that the 2023 shooting was justified.
They say Dial thought Irizarry had a gun when he approached Irizarry’s car after officers spotted the car being driven erratically and followed it for several blocks before it turned the wrong way down a one-way street and stopped.
Police body camera video of the shooting shows Dial getting out of a police SUV, striding over to Irizarry鈥檚 car and firing his weapon six times at close range through the rolled-up driver鈥檚 side window.
The video shows Irizarry holding a seven-inch knife before he was shot.
Another officer yelled 鈥渒nife鈥� as they had approached the vehicle, according to the video, but Dial鈥檚 attorneys disputed those assertions, saying the other officer yelled 鈥淕un!,鈥� that the knife resembled a gun and that Dial had acted lawfully and in self-defense.
Dial was released from custody in 2024 after prosecutors withdrew a first-degree murder charge.
