On Thursday, after a six-weeklong murder trial, a jury decided to acquit Arizona police officer Philip Mitchell Brailsford in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Texas man. Just hours after the verdict was announced, the body cam footage, which shows the moment Brailsford murdered the man in a hotel hallway, was released.
In the incident, officials responded to a report of a man pointing a gun out of a window. Upon arrival, Brailsford, along with other responding officers, ordered the victim, Daniel Shaver, out of his room. In the video obtained by multiple media outlets, Brailsford is seen and heard demanding Shaver to the ground to refrain from being shot.
“Listen to my instructions or it’s going to become very uncomfortable for you,” one of the officers yelled, prompting Shaver to plead for his life.
“Please do not shoot me,” Shaver said, just as the officers instructed the victim to crawl toward them. However, as he reached forward to crawl, he reached toward the waistband of his shorts, prompting Brailsford to fire his gun. Upon further investigation, officials believed Shaver’s motion toward his pants might have been to pull up his loose-fitting basketball shorts that had come down as he crawled. However, the investigators also agreed that the motion could have looked similar to reaching for a gun, but Shaver was unarmed.
Brailsford was fired after two years on the force and two months after the shooting for violating the department’s policy and for unsatisfactory performance, NBC News reports. Shortly after, he was arrested and charged with reckless manslaughter and second-degree murder, facing 25 years in prison. However, after a six-week long trial, Brailsford was acquitted despite the newly released body cam footage that showed Shaver pleading for his life with his hands in the air.
During the trial, it was revealed that Shaver was a pest-control worker, who was in Arizona on business with his air rifle, which was used to exterminate birds. Just moments before the fatal incident, Shaver waved the air rifle out of his fifth-floor window as he showed it off to the business acquaintances, who were in his room at the time. A witness noticed the gun and told the hotel front desk, who then called the police.
Brailsford testified that he was scared for his life, as well as the safety of his co-workers and the woman who was with Shaver at the time. Which led to not guilty verdicts on counts of both reckless manslaughter and second-degree murder.
The family attorney for the victim said the shooting was “an execution, pure and simple,” adding that, “the justice system miserable failed Daniel and his family.”
