Violence, riots and looting returned to the streets of Philadelphia on Tuesday night as the city was gripped with chaos stemming from a police shooting of a 27-year-old black man on Monday. The man identified as Walter Wallace Jr., advanced towards police with a knife, at which point two of the officers opened fire.
City officials were quick to issue statements following the incident, but promises to conduct a full investigation have done little to diffuse the situation.
On Tuesday, demonstrators clashed with police, ransacked and looted stores, and beat a reporter who was covering the destruction. Elijah Schaffer, a reporter for The Blaze was covering the looting at a store called Five Below when he was jumped by a group of protestors.
Following the beating, Schaffer continued to report from outside of the store with a visibly bloody lip and posted the video on Twitter of his reporting saying, “BREAKING: I was jumped by BLM rioters while they were looting more than a dozen stores, including Wal-Mart, T-Mobile, and 5-below.Though in pain, I didn’t stop reporting because Americans need to see what the corporate media refuses to show.”
The Pennsylvania National Guard is being mobilized in the city to help control the protests and riots for the second time in past five months.
Video from the Tuesday evening’s chaos showed rioters running out of stores with televisions, carts full of merchandise, and looters even entering a bank and ripping apart the ATMs.
Wallace’s cousin Anthony Fitzhugh, who was speaking on behalf of Wallace’s family with the Philadelphia NBC affiliate, was quick to denounce the looters. “Everybody out there that’s looting, they’re thieves, they’re opportunists,” Fitzhugh said. “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.”
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