Body camera footage shows a Mesa, Arizona, police officer, Philip Brailsford, shooting Daniel Shaver, an unarmed man, in a La Quinta Inn and Suites in 2016. Shaver sobbed and pleaded with the officer not to shoot him. Daniel Shaver, 26, lost his life on Jan. 18, 2016. He was attempting to following instructions of the officer, who had an AR-15 rifle aimed at him.
The officer who shot him, Philip Brailsford, was at the time a two-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department and was wearing a body camera. The officer’s responses to Shaver, who was following orders the best he could, were inconsistent with and contradictory to Shaver who was complicit, tearful and sounded fearful. Shaver said, “I’m sorry,” “Yes sir,” “Please don’t shoot me.” Following commands and demands of Brailsford to “crawl toward him,” he was inhumanely shot dead like he was a pesky rodent pilfering through one’s trash.
Brailsford and five other officers were called to the hotel because someone reported seeing a man with a gun in the window of a fifth-floor room. He was charged with second-degree murder for the shooting. The jury deliberated for less than six hours before acquitting him. The acquittal was handed down the same day a South Carolina judge sentenced Michael T. Slager, a White police officer, to 20 years in prison for the 2015 shooting of an unarmed Black motorist, Walter L. Scott.
Shaver, a husband and father of two, did, in fact, have a gun. It was pellet gun which he used for his job in pest control.
The video footage was recently released to the public who is outraged.
Here is a statement from the Law Enforcement Action Partnership in response:
“Like any serious public health or safety problem, we must prevent and treat officer-involved shootings at the source,” said Maj. Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP). “I can’t speak for this officer in particular, but overall, addressing PTSD in police, which is prevalent across the country, could be a key preventative measure for reducing the number of police shootings. After every shooting, an independent investigation complete with a civilian review board must look at the case, otherwise, the officer’s entire department loses trust from the community — and every officer knows how hard it is to protect and serve when people don’t trust you.”
