On the evening of January 18, 2016, Daniel Shaver, a 26-year-old pest control specialist from Granbury, Texas, was in Mesa, Arizona, for work. He was staying at a La Quinta Inn & Suites where he had invited two acquaintances to his room for drinks. During their time together, Shaver showed them a scoped air rifle he used for his job exterminating birds.
At some point, the rifle was pointed out of his fifth-floor window, which was observed by a witness who then notified the hotel staff, leading to a police call.
Mesa police officers responded to the report of a person pointing a rifle from a hotel window. They ordered Shaver and a female acquaintance out of the room and into the hallway. Body camera footage from the incident shows a police officer, later identified as Officer Philip Brailsford, giving Shaver a series of commands. While on his knees in the hotel hallway, an unarmed Shaver could be heard crying and pleading, 'Please don't shoot me.' The officer instructed him to crawl towards them.
As Shaver crawled, he reportedly made a motion with his right hand toward his waistband. Officer Brailsford, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle, stated that he believed Shaver was reaching for a weapon. In response, Brailsford fired his rifle five times, striking and killing Shaver almost instantly. It was later determined that Shaver was unarmed, and two pellet rifles related to his pest-control job were found in his hotel room. An autopsy revealed that Shaver had been shot five times.
The officer who shot Daniel Shaver was Philip 'Mitch' Brailsford. Following the shooting, he was charged with second-degree murder and a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter. Brailsford was fired from the Mesa Police Department. His trial concluded in December 2017, where a jury found him not guilty of all charges. The acquittal sparked public outrage and renewed debate over police use of force. Following his acquittal, Brailsford was briefly re-hired by the Mesa Police Department and then medically retired. Lawsuits filed by Shaver's widow and parents against the city of Mesa were settled for $8 million and $1.5 million, respectively.
