Walter Wallace Jr.: a crisis call that ended in a shooting
In 2020, Philadelphia police shot Walter Wallace Jr. during a mental health crisis. A year later the City of Philadelphia settled his family's wrongful death claim for $2.5 million. His case is the one most often cited when people ask what the police should do when the emergency is psychiatric.
A public record, not a client of this firm. Everything on this page comes from the court file, the government announcement or the reporting cited at the end. Usher Law Group did not represent anyone in this matter, we publish no results of our own, and nothing here predicts the outcome of any other case.
The call was about a mental health crisis. Police came, and Walter Wallace Jr. was shot and killed. That was in Philadelphia in 2020. In October 2021 the City settled with his family for $2.5 million.
The public record we rely on for this page is a settlement announcement, and it is deliberately brief. It does not resolve what the officers knew when they arrived, what they were told, or what else they might have done. A settlement never does. What it does say is that the City paid, and that the payment came within about a year, which for a police death case is fast.
The reason his name comes up so often is the category. A mental health crisis is the police call most likely to end in force, because the person is frightened rather than criminal and the officers are trained for the second thing. Philadelphia is in the Third Circuit, which has held that the Americans with Disabilities Act generally applies to arrests. That is the legal hinge of every crisis-call case: whether the response should have accounted for the disability that caused the call in the first place.
What the law calls it
Deadly force is unreasonable unless the officer has probable cause to believe the person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others (Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)). The full encounter is judged by objective reasonableness under Graham v. Connor. Alongside the Fourth Amendment claim runs the ADA claim: in the Third Circuit the ADA generally applies to arrests (Haberle v. Troxell, 885 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2018)), and in the Eleventh Circuit the urgency of the moment bears on whether an accommodation was reasonable (Bircoll v. Miami-Dade County, 480 F.3d 1072 (11th Cir. 2007)). The Supreme Court took a case on the question in 2015 and dismissed it without deciding (Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600).
Pennsylvania's Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. 8541 and 8542, immunizes local agencies from everything except nine negligence categories, so a shooting claim against the City runs under Section 1983 and Monell, not state tort law. Pennsylvania's Act 59 of 2020 now requires mental health evaluations for officers after a use of deadly force.
What it cost
Family of Walter Wallace Jr.
Shot by Philadelphia police during a mental health crisis in 2020.
Source: WHYY. A public record of someone else's case, not a result of this firm and not a prediction.
What it means for you
If someone in your family was hurt or killed when police answered a mental health call, the record you need is different from an ordinary force case: the 911 call itself and what the dispatcher told the officers, the crisis training the department had, and the alternatives it had available. Our mental health crisis calls page explains how the ADA claim is built alongside the force claim, and police shootings explains the Garner standard.
In Pennsylvania, the practical consequence of the Tort Claims Act is that the federal claim is the case. It has a two-year limitation period, no notice requirement, and no cap. A written request for police video must be made within 60 days of the recording under Act 22. Our Pennsylvania page sets out the clocks, and what Pennsylvania pays explains why almost every dollar in a Philadelphia police case is federal.
The pages this story points to
Mental health crisis calls
The force claim and the ADA claim, and the records that decide them.
Read →Police shootings
Deadly force under Tennessee v. Garner and what has to be shown.
Read →Pennsylvania
Two years for the federal claim, six months for state notice, 60 days for video.
Read →Sources. WHYY, "Walter Wallace Jr.'s family awarded wrongful death settlement from City of Philadelphia" (October 2021); Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985); Haberle v. Troxell, 885 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2018); 42 Pa.C.S. 8541, 8542; Act 59 of 2020 (MPOETC).
Common questions
Does the Americans with Disabilities Act apply when police respond to a mental health crisis?
In the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, the ADA generally applies to arrests (Haberle v. Troxell, 885 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2018)). The Eleventh Circuit, which covers Florida, agrees, and treats the urgency of the situation as bearing on whether an accommodation was reasonable (Bircoll v. Miami-Dade County). The Supreme Court left the question open in City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan (2015).
Can the family sue the City of Philadelphia under state law?
Pennsylvania's Tort Claims Act says no local agency is liable for damages except in nine listed categories, all requiring negligence, none of which covers a police shooting. That is why a Pennsylvania case like this one is built on the federal claim under Section 1983, which the state immunity statute cannot touch.
Tell us what happened.
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