right now at this defining moment in america, with so much on the line, from abc news, "my america, your america, our america." this is "turning point." tonight, a call for help. walter wallace jr. father. husband. gunned down during a mental health crisis by police who were called to the scene. >> put the knife down now! >> a black person with a weapon is going to get no grace, no mercy. >> his death the latest rallying cry. >> say his name! >> walter wallace! >> tonight, we confront the police commissioner. >> can you understand their emotion? >> i'm a parent. i couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a child. >> and the family's call for

justice. the one weapon they say all officers need to have. >> if tasers had been ound, he would very likely be alive. >> this "turning point" "a call for help," will be right back. a voeer that ps re to everything he does. it really protects my skin. it's comfortable and lasts a long time. with triple action moisturizers. i've never slept like this before. we gave new zzzquil pure zzzs restorative herbal sleep it's comfortable and lasts a long time. to people who were tired of being tired. what is even in this? clinically-studied plant based ingredients passion flower, valerian root, and hops. new zzzquil pure zzzs restorative herbal sleep. my crew. always on the go. and they work hard, but play harder. you know, day trips. week-long road trips. it's what we do. and nothing gets in the way of our plans... so... ...chevron is always part of the plan. yeah, we get chevron with techron for unbeatable mileage... ...plus snacks and drinks to go. fuel for them, fuel for me!

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tonight, intimate conversations with his family. and we go in depth with the police commissioner. how this shooting reveasystem, w we handle race, mental healthpo. we want to warn you, some of the images you're about to see are disturbing and graphic. ♪ here comes the bride ♪ >> i here now pronounce you husband and wife. you may kiss your wife, congratulations. >> reporter: dominique and walter wallace jr.'s wedding day last october sealed a love story years in the making. >> and you were pregnant at the time? >> yeah. >> how far along were you? >> any day now. >> reporter: mr. and mrs. wallace were already parenting four kids together. >> what did you think your future was going to look like? >> still being with our kids as a whole family. >> it was supposed to be happily ever after? >> yeah. >> reporter: less than a month afteredisalr

llace jasolic alsiit of mental >>eportewaer fy had called 911 for help. officers encountering walter holding a knife. that's his mother, frantically trying to protect her son. >> ma'am, back up! put the knife down! >> reporter: killed less than 60 seconds after police arrived. [ shots fired ] [ screaming ] >> a marriage is a soul bonding. when they took his life, my life was tooken too. >> say his name! >> walter wallace! >> reporter: walter's death became a rallying cry. >> think about how a call for help ends up as part of a death sequence. it is chilling. >> reporter: tonight we examine the intersection of policing and mental health with the wallace family telling their full story for the first time. >> they murdered him. >> reporter: and the philadelphia police commissioner on what went wrong.

>> put the knife do >>epn 6 , caone to fixhe system. >> i have absolutely no issue withholding officers accountable, with holding myself accountable. >> west philly is where you find generations of black working class and working poor people. there's a long history of tension and violence between philadelphia police and the black community. >> reporter: west philadelphia is where 27-year-old walter wallace jr. grew up. his dad, walter sr., a proud sanitation worker. his mom, kathy, had her hands full with walter and his three siblings. what kind of son was he? >> he was a normal son. he was a pain in my behind a lot of times, man. i'm going to keep it real, know what i mean? >> kathy, when you close your eyes, what memories of him come to mind? >> he sang rap. ♪ you got yours and i got mine ♪ >> reporter: but for all his brightness, walter struggled

with mental illness, starting as early as 6 years old. eventually, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. >> i understand he was on lithium? is that right? >> yeah, adderall, abill lafy. >> 12, 13 different types of medicine. >> you guys have been throughwr >> yeah. >> reporter: walter's emotions, his family says, sometimes led him to act out in violence ways. he faced trouble with the law, serving time in jail in 2017. but his father says he was a devoted dad who after a series of odd jobs found steady work during the pandemic as a door dash driver. walter's ultimate dream was to make it big one day with his music. ♪ ♪ial want to get things right ♪ >> reporter: ironically calling out policing and george floys s heartac heartache." >> it's a hard pill to swallow, know what i mean? thinking about my kid burying me, i have to bury my kid. it's like -- like the devil's

riding over your back. >> reporter: it was a day brimming with hope for dominique and walter. >> i was supposed to give birth at day. >> that was your due date? >> yeah. >> reporter: walter had gone to his parents' house after his car had gone missing days earlier, a devastating blow. >> he'd gone around looking for his car. because that's where his income came from. >> because he's a door dash driver, so this isn't just he's lost his car, he's lost his livelihood. >> yeah. >> reporter: when dominique and walter reported his car missing, she says the police laughed at them. walter's family says he was triggered into a mental health crisis. >> police, how may i help you? >> my daughter, my mother and my brothers called the cops earlier, and he's over there hitting my mother and father -- >> any weapons involved? >> no, but he's on probation and everything, he's had a case for being violent and everything, he got a whole record. >> stay on the line for medics,

okay? >> we was arguing, we wasn't fighting. >> i was trying to chase him and i fell.>>hi police 074. >> my mom, my mom need help. >> why were you chasing him, what were you trying to do? >> sometimes he act real crazy pat time, i didn't want him to act up. >> he was in need of psychiatric help. >> reporter: his wife, dominique, had been called to the house to help calm walter down. >> i'm telling him, like, we need to go home. like, i don't want to deal with the police, you don't want to deal with the police. >> reporter: and they had reason to worry. reports have shown that people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter. >> officers use caution responding, this is an ongoing domestic issue. >> what's going on? >> he came outside, he had the knife in his hand. >> put the knife down now! put the knife down now!

>> reporter: after arriving, within 15 "he's mental." what were you trying to communicate to the officers who were responding? >> he needs help. in that moment, it just is like -- y'all adding fuel to the fire. >> back up, back up, back up! >> i'm trying to grab him. but he had swung me out of the way. >> reporter: not only were police body cams capturing the incident, neighbors were also recording. >> put the knife down! >> did they spend a lot of time talking to him? >> no. >> ain't say nothing. >> put the knife down! [ shots fired ] going down, he still was opening up on him, know what i mean? >> he just fell. >> that was it. he took his last breath. >> reporter: less than one minute after they arrived on scene, walter wallace jr. is dead. the two officers fired 14 rounds, 10 bullets striking

walter. >> they had it set in their mind to crucify my son. exactly, that's exactly what they did. supposed to come and help. and help didn't come like the help we needed. >> you killed my son! you killed my son! you killed my son! >> back up! stop! >> what the hell y'all just do? my body going through shock, i'm shaking. >> reporter: robert gonzales has spent his career studying these interactions, helping change training techniques at the nypd after eric garner's death. >> he doesn't appear to be lunging at anyone. he doesn't lunge at the police officers. he's walking around. clearly he's agitated. both officers are yelling at him to put down the knife. >> reporter: gonzales says the problem with walter's case began at the 911 call. >> the sister actually tells the

911 dispatcher that the suspect has a record. was it a criminal record? was it a medical record? it was the 911 dispatcher, in my opinion, who failed to ask the right questions so that the police officers can be armed on how to deal with this particular situation. >> put the knife down! >> reporter: in addition to being ill informed, the officers were also ill equipped. in philadelphia, most officers are not issues less-lethal forms of force like a taser. gonzales says the only option they could use to disarm him at that point was their gun. >> i believe when he failed to comply, after maybe the sixth or seventh attempt, they realized that he was never going to drop the knife. then they need to use deadly physical force. in my opinion, this was a justified shooting. me personally, i probably wouldn't have discharged my firearm. if the officers would have continued to maintain the zone of safety, if they would have requested additional backup, where someone who responded might have had a taser, and then perhaps that would have saved a

life in this situation. >> there are many things that made walter wallace more vulnerable to the type of violence that he struggling with mental illness does this. living in a neighborhood that is considered high crime or high risk does this. >> reporter: for the wallace fami family, the pain is present in many ways. >> i cry every night. i cry every night about my son. >> i regret myself. i should have jumped in front of him, took the bullets, know what i mean? i froze. >> that moment haunts you. >> it will haunt me the rest of my life. when we come back, tough questions for philadelphia's police commissioner. >> when you look at that video, what went wrong that day? and we go inside a heated training session. >> get out of my house! >> and the reforms that walter wallace jr.'s family demands.

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say his name! >> walter wallace! >> october 2020. the city of brotherly love on edge. >> tonight, turmoil in philadelphia. >> unrest andinveig >> reporter:ury overhe city. one of over 300 black lives claimed by police last year across the country. >> for every george floyd, there are literally dozens of walter wallaces. >> reporter: for each life lost,

a family left behind fighting for change. eric garner's family battling to ban police chokeholds. breonna taylor's mom rallying against no-knock warrants. for wallace's family, how police respond to mental health. the family enlist the help of attorney chaka johnson, a former philadelphia police officer himself. >> when you hear mental health challenge, you have to wonder why deadly force when dealing with someone who is having a crisis. >> this narrative, that oh, he has a criminal record, and he was amped and dangerous -- >> right. >> what do you make of that description? >> when it is someone killed at the hands of police, we engage in victim blaming almost immediately. we don't go into that level of inquiry as it relates to the officers. >> reporter: the wallace family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the two officers. sean moderaso and thomas munns.

the officers' attorney said in a statement both sides are discussing a mutually satisfactory resolution, but they could still face criminal charges. both officers have been placed on restrictive duty pending investigations by internal affairs and the district attorney. >> when you look at that video, what went wrong that day? >> i'm not in a position to say what went wrong. i think there was an assumption that we knew that he was experiencing some form of crisis when we responded. we didn't. >> i'm here to listen -- >> reporter: after walter was killed, the philadelphia police commissioner, danielle outlaw, met with walter's family. >> put the knife down now! >> reporter: nine days later, she released the body-worn camera video of the fatal department's history. >> put the knife down! >> it didn't do us any good to hold on to that information, because it appeared as though we were trying to hide something, and we weren't. >> reporter: outlaw has built her career on reform.

on this day, she showed us their new crisis intervention training, something the officers in the walter wallace case didn't receive. >> so you introduce stress so that you can take what you learn in the classroom into the real world? >> yeah. >> reporter: in this scenario, we watch police respond to a domestic dispute. >> my husband, he's acting a little office. >> is there anyone else in the back room? >> no, just him. >> who are you guys? get out of my house! >> reporter: the man has a knife. >> get out of here! >> reporter: the police draw their weapons but to him. >> get out of here! >> just want to help you, man. >> they get all the information they need, they communicate thas much information as they possibly can to allow additional backup to arrive. >> let me get a supervisor and co-responder out to this location, please. >> philadelphia police department -- >> reporter: in addition to stepping up implicit bias training -- >> is she black, asian,

hispanic? >> reporter: outlaw changed 911 dispatcher training. adding questions to reveal mental health episodes. >> any type there's no cookie response. the best outcome is that everyone walks away safe. if someone's in crisis, they get the services that they need. that is ultimately not a police matter. >> reporter: but the wallace family says training alone isn't the answer. officers need to have the right tools. >> if tasers had been around, if those officers had been taser trained and certified, he would very likely be alive. >> reporter: the justice department recommended six years ago that all philadelphia officers be equipped with less-lethal options like tasers. walter wallace's family was very adamant that they requested that all officers be given tasers. and there's a real sense that they've been let down. >> well, i have made the request. it costs approximately $14 million over a period of five

years to get everyone in patrol, at least, outfitted with tasers. all budgets are approved by the city council, and the budget has sts ev me.enately ed>>r: outlon >> justice need to be served and them cops need to be locked up for what they did to him. >> yeah. >> you think the officers should be investigated, if not charged? >> charged, that's right. do it. >> walter wallace's family, his father, his mother, told me point blank, we think that the officers should be behind bars. >> that's a question i think for the district attorney. >> yet can you understand their emotion on that? >> they're entitled to that emotion. i'm a parent. i couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a child, and especially in front of me. >> i can't touch him, i can't

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u can all our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for staying up with us. good night, america.