Walter Wallace Jr.

Walter Wallace Jr., 27, a father with bipolar disorder, was shot 14 times and killed by Philadelphia Police Officers Sean Matarazzo and Thomas Munz outside his family's Cobbs Creek home on October 26, 2020, less than a minute after they arrived. His family had called 911 seeking an ambulance during a mental health crisis; officers instead confronted him with guns drawn as he held a knife, and one was heard on body camera telling the other “shoot him” roughly six seconds before both fired. His mother tried to position herself between her son and the officers while pleading with them not to shoot. District Attorney Larry Krasner personally led the investigation but never filed criminal charges against either officer. The city settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the family for $2.5 million in 2021. Wallace's own family did not call for murder charges, saying instead that officers lacked the training and less-lethal tools — neither carried a Taser — to handle a mental health crisis without killing him. No one has ever been charged in Wallace's death.

Philadelphia, PA · Philadelphia County

• 2020: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The 911 calls, the confrontation, and the shooting, per body-worn camera footage and 911 recordings the city released publicly, and District Attorney Larry Krasner's own public statements.
• Officers fired a total of 14 rounds after telling Wallace to drop the knife 23 times, per Krasner's account; body camera audio captured one officer saying “shoot him” roughly six seconds before both opened fire.
• Neither Matarazzo nor Munz carried a Taser; Philadelphia had roughly 2,300 Tasers for about 4,500 patrol officers at the time, department officials said.
• Krasner announced he was personally leading the investigation rather than relying solely on the police department's own review, and apologized publicly, saying “government failed” when Wallace was killed within a minute of officers' arrival.
• No criminal charges were ever filed against either officer; both were placed on restricted or inactive duty pending the investigation.
• The Wallace family's civil attorney explicitly stated the family was not seeking murder charges, instead calling for better crisis-intervention training and less-lethal equipment for Philadelphia police.
• The City of Philadelphia settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Wallace's family for $2.5 million in October 2021.
• Officer Thomas Munz died in an unrelated off-duty motorcycle crash in May 2022; a department spokesperson confirmed at the time that he had never been charged in the shooting.

• Whether the officers had any less-lethal alternative genuinely available to them in the roughly one minute between arrival and the shooting, given neither carried a Taser, was raised by the family's attorney but never tested at any criminal trial.
• The specific reasoning behind Krasner's ultimate decision not to file charges, despite his own public apology characterizing the outcome as a government failure, was not detailed in a formal public charging memo comparable to those issued in some other cities' declined prosecutions.
• Whether Wallace's documented bipolar disorder and prior mental health treatment history was communicated to the responding officers before they arrived has been disputed in various accounts of the 911 call content.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer — “Walter Wallace Jr., 27, a ‘family man’ with many mental health crises and encounters with police”
• The Philadelphia Inquirer — “Philly to pay $2.5 million to Walter Wallace Jr.'s family to settle claims over his killing by police”
• WHYY — “4 Black men killed by Philly police and the officers who haven't yet faced a jury”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs