Outrage has continued to swirl around the deadly shooting of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr., who was gunned down by police officers on Monday, as Blavity previously reported. 

Through a family lawyer, Wallace's mother said she called 911 hoping they would send emergency medical services but instead, two police officers showed up armed with guns.

In a video of the incident that has been shared widely, she is seen screaming and begging them not to shoot her son, but officers fired at least seven rounds each, killing the father of nine. Wallace's wife is slated to go into labor with their child on Wednesday. 

Family members and activists have repeatedly questioned why the officers didn't try de-escalating tactics before using deadly force. 

“Why didn’t they use a Taser? His mother was trying to defuse the situation. He has mental issues. Why you have to gun him down?” the victim's father told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has told news outlets that the two officers responding to the 911 call were not equipped with Tasers and only had guns on them. 

“Every police officer is not issued a Taser at this time,” Outlaw told local news outlet CBS3.

She went on to explain that it is common for officers to respond to domestic disturbance calls with guns and that she has asked lawmakers for more funding to expand the use of Tasers. 

According to The Philadelphia Voice, the police department is legally obligated to give every officer a Taser, but is still trying to comply with the rule.

In 2015, the Philadelphia Police Department released a detailed guide on when and how to use Tasers, but the department has long struggled to make sure every officer is trained to have one and can receive one. 

Data provided by the Philadelphia Police Department to local news outlet BillyPenn showed that even though more officers are trained to use Tasers each year, the usage of Tasers decreased between 2010 and 2015. 

Of the more than 6,300 officers in the department, between 2008 and 2016 only 2,201 officers were trained to use Tasers and about 2,660 Tasers were deployed, according to BillyPenn. NBC Philadelphia found that only a third of officers currently carry Tasers. 

But even with the few Tasers given out, the number of times it was used decreased by 60% between 2010 and 2015, according to police data. From the peak in 2011 of nearly 600 Taser uses, the numbers fell drastically by 2015 to less than 200.

In the guidelines released by the police department, they write that the use of a Taser "is authorized when the offender is physically aggressive or assaultive and there is an immediate likelihood that they may injure themselves or others."

Despite demands for police to carry Tasers, there have been incidents caught on video showing officers misusing their Tasers in Pennsylvania. 

During a news conference on Tuesday, Outlaw said the city plans on moving forward with guidelines to give more officers Tasers, according to Patch. 

Unfortunately, a Reuters study of Taser usage in 2018 found that at least 49 people died in 2018 after being shocked by one.

Reuters noted that there is no government agency that tracks how often Tasers are used or how often they result in the loss of life. However, the news outlet reported at least 1,081 people in total have died in the United States after Tasers were used on them, most of which occurred after the weapon became more widely used in the early 2000s.

Last year, police officers in Texas killed Javier Ambler after tasing him at least four times. He had a heart condition and begged them to stop as they arrested him for not dimming his headlights, as Blavity previously reported. 

Philadelphia Police DepartmentPolice brutalityPolice-ViolenceWalter-Wallace-Jr.