Free Republic

Daniel Shaver did not deserve to die. He made an otherwise innocuous mistake, as people often do, especially in high pressure situations and after having consumed alcohol. But he did not deserve to die for it. Shaver could have been any one of our twenty-something children or siblings. The events of the night in which 25-year old Shaver died nearly two years ago, are not in dispute. Shaver was drinking with two companions in a Mesa, Arizona La Quinta Inn. At one point that evening, likely showing off, Shaver pointed a pellet rifle he used for his job in pest...

If you have the stomach for it, I want you to watch one of the most outrageous and infuriating videos I’ve ever seen. It shows the police shooting of Daniel Shaver in Mesa, Arizona. He was crawling on his hands and knees, crying, and begging police not to shoot him. An officer shot him anyway: The Washington Post’s account is decent, but you have to watch the video truly grasp the strangeness of the requests: In fact, the Post actually sugarcoats the encounter. At one point an officer tells him “do not put your hands down for any reason,” even...

A Maricopa County jury on Thursday found former Mesa police Officer Philip “Mitch” Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder charges in the 2016 shooting of an unarmed Texas man who was on his knees begging for his life. Jurors deliberated for less than six hours over two days, finishing Thursday afternoon. The eight-member jury also found Brailsford not guilty of the lesser charge of reckless manslaughter. The packed courtroom in Maricopa County Superior Court was quiet after one of Judge George Foster’s clerks read the verdict. Brailsford was one of two officers in Arizona since 2005 who had been charged...

Newly released body camera footage shows a police officer shooting an unarmed man in an Arizona hotel after the man sobbed and pleaded with officers not to shoot him. The graphic video, which was released after a jury on Thursday acquitted the officer of murder and manslaughter charges, stoked outrage on social media and renewed calls for reforms in law enforcement.

Brailsford orders Shaver, 26, to lay face-down in a hallway and refrain from making sudden movements - or risk being shot. He also orders a woman in the hallway to lie on the ground. Shaver is seen complying with the officer's order to put his hands on top of his head and cross his left foot over his right foot. "Young man, you are not to move. You are to put your eyes down look down at the carpet you are to keep your fingers interlaced behind your head you are to keep your feet crossed," Brailsford says. "If you...

former Arizona police officer was acquitted Thursday of a murder charge in the 2016 fatal shooting of an unarmed man outside his hotel room as officers were responding to a call that someone there was pointing a gun out a window. The verdict cleared Philip Mitchell Brailsford, 27, of criminal liability in the 2016 death of Daniel Shaver of Granbury, Texas.

A judge on Dec. 8 released graphic video showing Daniel Shaver crawling on his hands and knees and begging for his life before he was shot and killed. The shooting, by Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, then an officer with the Mesa Police Department, occurred after officers responded to a call about a man allegedly pointing a rifle out of a fifth-floor window at a La Quinta Inn. The graphic video, which was released after a jury on Thursday acquitted the officer of murder and manslaughter charges, stoked outrage on social media and renewed calls for reforms in law enforcement. See the...

A newly-released video shows an Arizona police officer shooting and killing an unarmed man in January 2016 after the man, who was crying and begging for his life, made a mistake in complying with his orders. The body camera footage was released on Friday by the judge presiding over Officer Philip Brailsford's trial after Brailsford was acquitted on Thursday for the killing. The victim, 26-year-old pest control worker Daniel Shaver, was staying in the La Quinta Inn & Suites in Mesa, Arizona while on a business trip when police received a call that someone was pointing a gun out of...

The Shaver case is well beyond politics. There is nothing conservative, liberal or constitutional about an agent of the state killing an American without just cause. It is deeply wrong regardless of party or ideology. Bernie Sanders voters and the most ardent Trump supporters all should be united in outrage over the death of Daniel Shaver. Maricopa County District Attorney Bill Montgomery got it right by charging Brailsford with second degree murder. The jury got it very wrong. Shaver should be alive, and his death must be taken as a call to action. Police departments should establish that a suspect...

Police body cam footage shows the moment a Mesa, AZ police officer gunned down an unarmed man in a hotel hallway -- a shooting where the jury found the officer not guilty of 2nd degree murder. The 2016 shooting happened in a hotel where police were responding to a report of someone pointing a gun out a window. Philip Brailsford was one of the responding officers, and in this video you see and hear the cops barking out commands to a man and woman the moment they walk out of their room. While attempting to take Daniel Shaver into custody...