Posted on 07/12/2019 2:03:46 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A US police officer who was fired after shooting dead an unarmed man was temporarily rehired so he could apply for a pension, local media report.
Philip Brailsford, 28, killed 26-year-old Daniel Shaver in the hallway of an Arizona hotel in early 2016.
He was fired and charged with murder - but was acquitted at trial in 2017.
Records show that he was briefly rehired last year so he could apply for a lifetime pension worth more than $2,500 (£2,000) a month.
The move meant he could be medically retired - rather than fired - which made him eligible for the pension.
"He was eligible for retirement benefits, so he applied for them," local official Chris Brady told ABC News. He added that Mr Brailsford had submitted a claim of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in connection with the shooting.
~SNIP~ Bodycam footage of the incident, released after Mr Brailsford was acquitted, showed Mr Shaver on his knees asking officers not to shoot him.
But he was shot five times with a semi-automatic rifle as he crawled towards the officers while sobbing.
Lawyers argued that Mr Brailsford had responded appropriately, according to his training, when Mr Shaver reached towards his waistband - because he believed there was a concealed firearm there.
No weapon was found on the body, but Mr Bailsford said he believed Mr Shaver was reaching for one.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
My opinion also.
I've never pointed anything remotely resembling a firearm out a window...drunk *or* sober.
So there goes your theory out the window.
What was my theory?

...not just get away with it but get a lifetime pension!
One of the talk shows I listen to has a prison psychologist as a frequent guest.
In the course of her career she would do psyche evals on police department applicants to weed out the sadists, the ones with control and rage issues, the ones with narcissistic personalities, she was horrified to find that many of the people she utterly failed were hired anyway. Many, not just a few MANY.
Dad and granddad were on the force, he’s a friend of the mayor, the local alderman owes him a favor, etc., etc., etc...
Sometimes the person who should never ever ever be trusted with authority over any of his fellows humans would simply apply elsewhere where the screening wasn’t as diligent.
These guys and gals need to be weeded out.
Before we had Gubmint unions, if a cop shot an Unarmed Person, it was an automatic 5 years, granted times were a lot different, but a trained police officer should have enough sense to determine if the subject has a Firearm.
I agree. The old ones could.
See post #65
For many years, I have smiled at people’s dislike for the laws in different theologies. If you don’t like the law, you get with others that feel the same as you and you go to the state or federal congress and you see that the law is changed. Remember, the people that made those laws represent you and you voted them in either by losing in the vote or not trying to get rid of them with physical support to your party and candidate along with those neighbors. If the congressperson doesn’t wish to do what you want, you campaign against him/her and get them out with new people that feel the way you do. That’s the process. But until that happens, the law is the law and you either follow it, or you leave so you won’t be forced to live within it. By law, those are your options. I hope you stay and fight, but most don’t. And ignoring it or fighting against it without the process just means time or dime, or both. That’s the law.
rwood
How do you get a $2500/mo. pension at age 28?
There is no justice in this country.
The cop was found not guilty of murder. That does NOT mean he was found justified. He deserves no prison time because they did not get a criminal conviction. But he could certainly have an administrative review, and that review would surely show less than totally proper behavior.
Well, maybe not. The Mesa Police Department doesn’t have a good reputation here in Arizona. They MIGHT claim he deserves a medal!
Since I don’t live in Mesa, I have zero voice in Mesa politics. But I am well within my rights to be disgusted by the Mesa Police Department and by laws that make it very hard to convict a cop who shoots anyone for any reason. All I can actually DO is stay on the freeway any time I am near Mesa.
I rarely agree with David French on anything, but he makes a good point here (different case but a similar problem):
“The brief dissent was spot-on. After noting that not even qualified immunity protects the plainly incompetent, the dissenting judge said, Because no competent officer would fire his weapon in the direction of a nonthreatening pet while that pet was surrounded by children, qualified immunity should not protect Officer Vickers. This seems plainly true.”
You’re the first one on this thread defending the murder of Daniel Shaver that I have seen.
Two words.....
Police Union.
Do a cop’s job for a while and then tell us how you would have reacted instead of acting as if you know for sure...of course, if they make the standard that as long as one is making the right noises and “might not be trying to distract for an opening”, a cop must wait until a perp withing 15 feet fires on them first, then you may have a case....for giving every suspect carte-blanche benefit of the doubt.
To be honest, the only example I know is one (the shooting of Walter Scott by Michael Slager, which by the way some on FR claimed was a righteous kill, but I digress since the jury thought otherwise). The only other I know is for a Florida cop called Nouman Raja who was sentenced for up to 25, but Raja is Indian so it wasnt exactly a white cop-black person thing.
Anyway, there would have been riots but no conviction. A police department brazen enough to rehire a person just so he can get a pension wouldnt have worried much about race.
Brailsford got away with murder. Bastard.
I’m married to a Marine and there are no tattoos on him. He said he never got one because he didn’t want it cut off if the Muslims captured him and apparently this is something those freakshows do to some of their victims.
;^)
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