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This one really needs to be seen to be believed....

***Warning: A man is clearly seen being shot in this video after the 16:00 Mark****



The officer was found Not Guilty by a jury in Mesa Arizona. Sure he was fired by the force for not following procedure, and the civil suit is pending.

.... draw your own conclusions.

Local coverage here:
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/philip-brailsford-verdict-former-mesa-officer-found-not-guilty-of-second-degree-murder

I have no audio atm

What exactly was said to the guy. he was putting his hand up, down behind his back and started crawling towards what looks like a bag.

edit: well still cant hear it at work but looks like he was told to crawl towards the cop but he pulled up his pants.

Wow. Murder. Absolutely cold blooded murder. That thug thought he was playing Call of Duty and slaughtered someone.

Yea, this one seems like they made the wrong call based on the video alone

Well the Jury doesnt seem to and i dont ether.

After watching it a few times he did reach for the back of his pants in a jerky manner with his hands obscured to the cop.

hindsight and all that its a gaky situation for everyone involved.

They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

 cuda1179 wrote:
They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

Thanks mate sucks watching vids without the audio.

 Desubot wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

Thanks mate sucks watching vids without the audio.

Shaver was very audibly crying through most of the video, and wobbly as hell, reports said he had been drinking. I feel there should have been a murder charge, the officers were in literally no danger, with 3 of them having guns trained on a drunk kid who is having issues sitting upright, and no visible weapon..

As someone don't used to watch this kind of thing... thats pretty brutal.

This is why I'm glad here is so difficult to have legally a gun. Not because someone could shoot me with a gun, but because our cops aren't as trigger happy as a result of everyone potentially having something to shoot them with.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

Thanks mate sucks watching vids without the audio.

Shaver was very audibly crying through most of the video, and wobbly as hell, reports said he had been drinking. I feel there should have been a murder charge, the officers were in literally no danger, with 3 of them having guns trained on a drunk kid who is having issues sitting upright, and no visible weapon..

Well the problem being no visible weapon isnt proof that he doesn't have a weapon

and drunk people with guns happen and its always bad.

he was fired for not following some sort of procedure and i feel like the best course of action would of been to have two keep eyes on him while telling him not to move stay on the ground and then detain him since he was under the influence. however in this situation even if it was or was not proper procedure shaver did not follow instructions and made a gesture that would look like he is reaching for something in his back pocket.

but i have no idea whats on the books for that particular (or any actually) department for this sort of situation when clearing a building with a suspected gun threat.

It was an air rifle provided by his work (exterminator), he was showing it to friends and someone called the cops because they saw it through the window.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
It was an air rifle provided by his work (exterminator), he was showing it to friends and someone called the cops because they saw it through the window.

Well the cops certainly wouldnt of know that it was an air rifle not from a call through a window. especially after the last time a hotel window and a gun was involved. :/

Really, you need to listen to the video, there is a lot more to it.

Some of the instructions were.... bizarre..... so listen for yourself somewhere outside of work.

 Desubot wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

Thanks mate sucks watching vids without the audio.

Shaver was very audibly crying through most of the video, and wobbly as hell, reports said he had been drinking. I feel there should have been a murder charge, the officers were in literally no danger, with 3 of them having guns trained on a drunk kid who is having issues sitting upright, and no visible weapon..

Well the problem being no visible weapon isnt proof that he doesn't have a weapon

and drunk people with guns happen and its always bad.

he was fired for not following some sort of procedure and i feel like the best course of action would of been to have two keep eyes on him while telling him not to move stay on the ground and then detain him since he was under the influence. however in this situation even if it was or was not proper procedure shaver did not follow instructions and made a gesture that would look like he is reaching for something in his back pocket.

but i have no idea whats on the books for that particular (or any actually) department for this sort of situation when clearing a building with a suspected gun threat.

My point is that the kid was drunk, didn't already have a weapon in his hand, was bawling his eyes out. You can hear his say "yes sir", "no sir", and "please don't shoot me". Is a drunk kid going to magically pull a gun out and slot all 3 officers (who are already trained on him) before they shoot him? I don't think so. Either way they were better off sending one guy to secure him when he was still lying on the ground, instead of the circus of commands he was given.

In hindsight sure we know he didn't have a weapon but that's not how a situation like this works. it doesnt matter if a person is crying super emotional pissing his pants until he is secured you just dont know and cops dont have magic x ray vision to make sure he isnt hiding something in his butt crack.

personally yeah i believe one person should of gone up and just secured him.

but in the context of this situation and clearly the jury agrees its not seconded man slaughter.

 Easy E wrote:
Really, you need to listen to the video, there is a lot more to it.

Some of the instructions were.... bizarre..... so listen for yourself somewhere outside of work.

yeah definitely. i will be doing so later when i can.

without the audio it looks really odd the kid is flailing around and just cant stay still.

Well, at least we can take a break from being armchair generals to being armchair policemen.


Seriously guys, in this day and age, with suicide bombers, terriorists, radicals, and random people shooting other random people from hotel room windows because they just don't care anymore, you really don't want to get judgemental of the police who have to deal with this gak every day, with their lives on the line.

Do you, really, really, really, want to go put your life, or the lives of your friends on the line, and put the life of some drunk you don't know first? Every chance you give him is one chance you're taking away from your friends, and yourself.

We wern't their. Our lives arn't in danger. Every day. It takes seconds to shoot someone fatally. Then you have to watch your friends or yourself die. Maybe this officer already made a bad call and one of his friends died because of it. Maybe he's watched others make bad calls.

Either way, he was trained, paid, and given the responsibility to make this call, and frankly, none of us were, or have ever been in his place.
If any of us have, then I'd accept their views. But otherwise I really don't think this is a fair or tasteful discussion.

Further berating an officer whose lost his job and reputation for making a call he doubtless did to try to save lives isn't going to bring anyone back.
It's just going to make other officers hestiate later. Then someone else is going to get shot.

This comes across as a horrible mistake. They seemed to take it way too far based on just a gun being reported, sounds like the case of the 12 year old in a sense.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Well, at least we can take a break from being armchair generals to being armchair policemen.


Seriously guys, in this day and age, with suicide bombers, terriorists, radicals, and random people shooting other random people from hotel room windows because they just don't care anymore, you really don't want to get judgemental of the police who have to deal with this gak every day, with their lives on the line.

Do you, really, really, really, want to go put your life, or the lives of your friends on the line, and put the life of some drunk you don't know first? Every chance you give him is one chance you're taking away from your friends, and yourself.

We wern't their. Our lives arn't in danger. Every day. It takes seconds to shoot someone fatally. Then you have to watch your friends or yourself die. Maybe this officer already made a bad call and one of his friends died because of it. Maybe he's watched others make bad calls.

Either way, he was trained, paid, and given the responsibility to make this call, and frankly, none of us were, or have ever been in his place.
If any of us have, then I'd accept their views. But otherwise I really don't think this is a fair or tasteful discussion.

Further berating an officer whose lost his job and reputation for making a call he doubtless did to try to save lives isn't going to bring anyone back.
It's just going to make other officers hestiate later. Then someone else is going to get shot.

This is some grade A kill or be killed Judge Dredd fantasy right here. Even in the US the amount of police officers killed is tiny on the number employed, even less for other Western nations. Terrorists aren't exactly roaming the streets, they are singular events taken way out of proportion. The absolute vast majority of police officers will likely never encounter one in their lifetime. Those kinds of assumptions are crazy.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Well, at least we can take a break from being armchair generals to being armchair policemen.


Seriously guys, in this day and age, with suicide bombers, terriorists, radicals, and random people shooting other random people from hotel room windows because they just don't care anymore, you really don't want to get judgemental of the police who have to deal with this gak every day, with their lives on the line.

Do you, really, really, really, want to go put your life, or the lives of your friends on the line, and put the life of some drunk you don't know first? Every chance you give him is one chance you're taking away from your friends, and yourself.

We wern't their. Our lives arn't in danger. Every day. It takes seconds to shoot someone fatally. Then you have to watch your friends or yourself die. Maybe this officer already made a bad call and one of his friends died because of it. Maybe he's watched others make bad calls.

Either way, he was trained, paid, and given the responsibility to make this call, and frankly, none of us were, or have ever been in his place.
If any of us have, then I'd accept their views. But otherwise I really don't think this is a fair or tasteful discussion.

Further berating an officer whose lost his job and reputation for making a call he doubtless did to try to save lives isn't going to bring anyone back.
It's just going to make other officers hestiate later. Then someone else is going to get shot.

I guess the simple question that I have, and some other posters mentioned already: If you already have a guy completely prone with his hands locked on the ground, and you have three policemen on location, why not send one guy to check and constrain him while his two partners give him cover - instead of that mishmash of yelled commands to get him from position A to B to a bit closer to C until he feths up, which was to be expected as drunk and confused as he sounded?

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
They were telling him to keep his hands up no matter what while he crawls towards them. Specifically telling him not to put his hands behind himself or reach for anything.

Thanks mate sucks watching vids without the audio.

Shaver was very audibly crying through most of the video, and wobbly as hell, reports said he had been drinking. I feel there should have been a murder charge, the officers were in literally no danger, with 3 of them having guns trained on a drunk kid who is having issues sitting upright, and no visible weapon..

There was a murder charge. The police officer was found not guilty.

 Witzkatz wrote:

I guess the simple question that I have, and some other posters mentioned already: If you already have a guy completely prone with his hands locked on the ground, and you have three policemen on location, why not send one guy to check and constrain him while his two partners give him cover - instead of that mishmash of yelled commands to get him from position A to B to a bit closer to C until he feths up, which was to be expected as drunk and confused as he sounded?

I would suspect they were ordering him closer because they were trying to avoid exposing themselves to the doorway of the room they are attempting to enter at the end of the video. From the police officers view you can't make out the doorway as they are slightly recessed and you wouldn't be able to tell if one of the doors on the right suddenly opened in the case that somebody were going to fire on the police. Being in a narrow hallway with no options for taking cover they are already in a difficult situation which is likely why they ordered both suspects forwards towards them. They managed to secure the first one which was being led away leaving the forward officer by himself and likely a bit extra jumpy. He does tell the kid repeatedly not to lower his hands or he'll be shot and is very clear in that regard, but drunk (or high) people behave in weird unexpected ways. He drops his hands right as he reaches where the bag is at and also turns to the side, it could easily been seen as attempting to reach for a weapon at his back or inside the bag it's really hard to tell exactly what's going on from the camera angle as it cuts off some of the scene.

While the cop had his gun trained on the suspect and could easily fire before he were to draw a weapon it's not like the movies, while a shot will often drop somebody quickly it's not always instantaneous and there's a chance that even taking several round he could fire on officers before he's down. It only takes one unlucky stray shot from a falling suspect to kill one of the officers or anyone else staying in the nearby rooms. Waiting can put everyone's lives in danger and unfortunately the kid died because he was too terrified or messed up to to be able to comply effectively. Hindsight makes it apparent that the cop shouldn't have fired but it's very difficult to make that choice in the moment.

I don't think he followed proper procedure in attempting to secure the suspect while his partner was tending to the other suspect because then both officers are occupied without being able to cover the hallway. In order to maintain proper control in an armed situation you are supposed to process one person at a time leaving one partner at the ready and maintaining full situational awareness. Having somebody crawl on their knees with legs crossed at the same time is pretty darn hard too, not sure how somebody that drunk is supposed to do anything, he should have been ordered to remain flat until the other officer was freed up to allow one of them to approach the suspect and drag him if needed.

 Easy E wrote:
Really, you need to listen to the video, there is a lot more to it.

Some of the instructions were.... bizarre..... so listen for yourself somewhere outside of work.

Yes. Like crawl while keeping your hands up and legs crossed. What? On another PoPo friendly board the PoPo are going "what?" Bad irders and the shouting is counter to what should be done.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:

Either way, he was trained, paid, and given the responsibility to make this call,

which is why, when a person has the power over life and death, they need to make if not the right decision then at least a justifiable one.

The killer did everything wrong here.

Unbelievable that he skated on this, but I'm not surprised.

I don't know how anyone can possibly consider this acceptable. Also, the judge made sure the jury did not see the video during the trial.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Well, at least we can take a break from being armchair generals to being armchair policemen.


Seriously guys, in this day and age, with suicide bombers, terriorists, radicals, and random people shooting other random people from hotel room windows because they just don't care anymore, you really don't want to get judgemental of the police who have to deal with this gak every day, with their lives on the line.

Do you, really, really, really, want to go put your life, or the lives of your friends on the line, and put the life of some drunk you don't know first? Every chance you give him is one chance you're taking away from your friends, and yourself.

We wern't their. Our lives arn't in danger. Every day. It takes seconds to shoot someone fatally. Then you have to watch your friends or yourself die. Maybe this officer already made a bad call and one of his friends died because of it. Maybe he's watched others make bad calls.

Either way, he was trained, paid, and given the responsibility to make this call, and frankly, none of us were, or have ever been in his place.
If any of us have, then I'd accept their views. But otherwise I really don't think this is a fair or tasteful discussion.

Further berating an officer whose lost his job and reputation for making a call he doubtless did to try to save lives isn't going to bring anyone back.
It's just going to make other officers hestiate later. Then someone else is going to get shot.

Months ago, my older brother was in a normal party-zone of the city at night, at 2-3am. He was peeing in a alley when a police car stopped just at his side. The officers leaved the car and did tell him to remain right there. The friend that was with my brother just waited for the cops, but my brother started to run away from them.
After something like a 15 minute chase, they caught him after he left a nightclub where he entered to go to the bathroom, thinking he had misled them. Obviously, the cops pulled him agaisn't the car, they searched him, and one entered the nigthclub, thinking that he had drugs and that he had thrown them in the toilet.
Luckily for my brother, he was totally clean of course, and one of the officers was a old friend of my father, that recognised him and did tell him to go to his house with just a fine.
When my brother did come home to tell me that, with his hearth racing, I asked him "WTF, are you stupid? Why did you ran?" He's answer was "I don't know. It was just my first impulse."

Is easy to say that when a police officer is yelling at you, everyone can just stand there with a cool head like a secret agent, in total control of his actions. But thats not how human works. When we are scared we do stupid things. Its even worse when an officer is aiming at you with a gun.
In USA, it could have been a real possibility that my older brother could have ended being shot that night by one of the officers. Just because he was scared and acted, Lets recognise it, in a stupid but totally understandable way.

Is the job of the cop, to have a cold head, and to know how to threat the subjet in tense situations. I'm totally in agreement with you that I have no idea how it feels to be in those situations. But officers in other western nations do know. And theres not that high rate of police murder in western European nations. Why? I can understand some of the "why's". Theres a much smaller number of guns out there in Europe, so officers don't need to assume that everybody has a gun. But that can't be all. Things aren't as simple.

I'm not gonna declare myself an expert in this matter, quite the contrary, I'm very ignorant. But theres a problem in USA with this. And as long as people just look at the other way, justifying every case, isn't gonna get fixed.

Watching that video is disgusting. Great example of how you handle a crisis. Tell people you're going to shoot them if they don't do as you say multiple times and then giving conflicting and nonsensical orders. Never mind that non-cooperation in itself should not be grounds for lethal force in itself, but it's almost like the officers were trying to trip someone up so they could fire (if you're cynical about it).

In USA, it could have been a real possibility that my older brother could have ended being shot that night by one of the officers. Just because he was scared and acted, Lets recognise it, in a stupid but totally understandable way.

There was a case last year in one of the New England states where a judge ruled that running from police could not be considered evidence of guilt, grounded on the reasoning that people now can have a rational fear of any police interaction. The sad part is that its kind of true.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I don't know how anyone can possibly consider this acceptable. Also, the judge made sure the jury did not see the video during the trial.

They also didn't allow pictures of his rifle, which he had replaced the dust cover on to a customized one which read "you're fethed". They decided it was too prejudicial, which is pretty bizarre since, well, this is a thing he chose to do and it shows his mindset going in.

Anywhat this is the kind of thing that naturally evolves from letting cops cosplay like they're on patrol in a war zone with an ROE so loose, an actual solider would get court martialed. Eventually they see themselves as an occupying force with the public as the enemy. And it's going to keep happening every time it's reinforced by a jury letting the cops in question skate.

 Ouze wrote:
They decided it was too prejudicial, which is pretty bizarre since, well, this is a thing he chose to do and it shows his mindset going in.

This happens a lot in these cases. The victim's entire life will be dragged out into public view, but the officer will be shielded from equal scrutiny at trial. The body camera video I find even more baffling. What's the damn point of body cameras if the video is just going to hidden where no one can see it but the people they're supposed to keep in check?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Really, you need to listen to the video, there is a lot more to it.

Some of the instructions were.... bizarre..... so listen for yourself somewhere outside of work.

Yes. Like crawl while keeping your hands up and legs crossed. What? On another PoPo friendly board the PoPo are going "what?" Bad irders and the shouting is counter to what should be done.

Yeah the orders were confusing and weird. Like, pushing yourself up on to your knees while keeping your legs crossed is an awkward thing to do under normal circumstances, then yelling at him for not keeping his legs crossed, then telling him to crawl forward while his legs are still crossed and hands in the air.

Just watched with audio. the hell is up with those instructions.