On Thursday, after a trial that lasted about six weeks, a jury found former Mesa, Arizona police officer Philip Brailsford not guilty in the fatal shooting of Daniel Shaver, an unarmed Texas man. Hours after the verdict, body camera footage of the shooting was released.
Officers had responded to a report that someone was pointing a gun out of a hotel window. In the footage, Brailsford and other officers are heard shouting commands at Shaver in a hotel hallway, ordering him to the ground and then to crawl toward them. Shaver is heard pleading, saying “Please do not shoot me.” As he crawled, he reached toward the waistband of his shorts, and Brailsford fired.
Investigators later said Shaver may have been trying to pull up his loose shorts, though they also acknowledged the movement could look like a person reaching for a gun. Shaver was not armed with a gun. During the trial it was shown that he was a pest control worker in Arizona on business, and the weapon in his room was a pellet rifle used on the job to get rid of birds. A witness had seen it in the window and told the hotel desk, which called police.
Brailsford was fired in March 2016 for violating department policy and for unsatisfactory performance, NBC News reported. He was charged with second degree murder, with reckless manslaughter as a lesser charge, and testified that he feared for his life and for the safety of the other officers and a woman who was in the hallway. The jury found him not guilty on both counts.
A former Phoenix police lieutenant who reviewed the video told a local station he would have reacted the way Brailsford did and believes a reasonable officer would have fired. An attorney for the Shaver family called the shooting an execution and said the justice system failed Daniel and his family.
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