Posted on 12/11/2017 4:06:18 PM PST by Main Street
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 window of the hotel, Newsweek reported. While Shaver had reportedly been showing off a pellet gun to two guests that night, according to witnesses, he was unarmed when the police confronted him in the hallway of the hotel.
In the video, Brailsford is seen standing by as another officer, Sgt. Charles Langley, commanded Shaver to get on the floor and crawl towards him, all while berating him and intimidating him with death threats. Shaver appeared to be complying with his orders, and can be heard sobbing as he crawls towards Brailsford and Langley. But after Shaver reached back toward his pant leg, Brailsford shot him five times with his AR-15, believing he was reaching for a gun.
"Please don't shoot me," Shaver begged Brailsford, moments before his death.
After being charged with second-degree murder in May 2016, Brailsford was acquitted after less than six hours of deliberation by a jury, Vice News reported.
During the trial, Brailsford maintained that he did nothing wrong.
"If this situation happened exactly as it did that time, I would have done the same thing," Brailsford stated in court.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Where was the poor kids ‘White Privilege’??? I did see it.
Anybody see this in the national MSM?? Or is it being ignored because it doesn’t mesh with their ‘Police Only Shoot Innocent Black People’ narrative?
Cop murdered him. Got off.
I love cops. This looks horrible. It feels like the officer was on a power trip. Something is terribly wrong.
Just tell the perp to lay flat down on the ground with his hands out in front. One officer covers him while the other handcuffs him.
Noting the officer is going to do the exact same thing again is alarming.
I would be feeling angry, and betrayed by the utter scumbag communist in the black robe, who withheld relevant evidence from the jury.
I believe CBS aired this story...and part of the video...last week on an evening newscast.
The kid forgot his “white card” at home so CNN can’t cover it. They’re too busy discussing Trump’s tv habits or how many diet cokes he drinks.
Hang this POS!
>>A common theme is; why don‘t good cops hold bad cops accountable ?
Thin Blue Line. In their world, the cop’s life is more important than EVERYONE else’s.
And we, as Conservatives, have a lot of blame in this. We’re the ones who supported them no matter what, calling them “heroes” for just getting home alive. As they militarized over the last 30 years, we kept making excuses for the bad ones (as long as they didn’t get found guilty in court) and assuming that anyone who got shot probably deserved it.
Now the beast that we helped to create is turning on us too and if you don’t still call these armed civil service workers “heroes”, their supporters will attack you too.
I’m glad you are a good cop.
This young man and his widow were in high school with my kids here in Nashville. I heard exactly what happened way back when it happened. This warrants a federal criminal investigation for civil rights violations and I have called both of my Senators and the White House and spoken to actual human beings about it as well as having e-mailed our Congressman. Mesa PD would not let the widow see the video and intimidated her about “going to the media”. They kept it all tightly wrapped until they got their punk cop acquitted. They had already fired him for other disregard of procedures and I think they just didn’t want to have to pay a huge financial settlement.
Thank you as well for being on the job.
Actually the judge did allow the jury to see the video. The jurors blew this one.
Both the prosecution and defense attorneys petitioned the court to seal the video from the public. The judge did the right thing and released it. The public has a right to know how the police carry out their duties.
The entire Mesa police dept needs to b reviewed.
It’s my understanding they only saw a portion of the video, and it’s been reported that they did not get to see the shoot.
That kid had to have been terrified. That can be as bad or worse than being drunk as far as understanding and heeding commands. That officer sure did escalate this, the kid was obviously not a threat to someone with an AR-15. So sad.
Unbelievable! Is “get on your hands and knees and crawl” proper procedure? I thought the procedure was more like hands up, turn around, get on knees, slowly lie down with arms and legs wide open and plain sight, then one officer covers while the other cuffs.
Ordering him to crawl around is totally inappropriate and imo the proximate cause for the death. In other words, the cop’s stupid commands were the reason the man kept moving around, which gives the cop a (convenient) excuse to shoot.
My Grandfather was Chief of police and somehow never killed anyone even though he got shot, in a bank robbery.
Raised 5 kids too
Thank you. Exactly as I thought.
The guy is a power/control freak.
Remove his power.
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