Daniel Shaver was just a ordinary guy who did nothing wrong to deserve the attention of Mesa Police Officer Phillip “Mitch” Brailsford.

On January 18, 2016, Daniel Shaver, a traveling pest-control worker, was in between shifts at his motel, a La Quinta Inn and Suites in Mesa, Arizona. In the elevator, he met a man and woman who’d just finished their own workdays, the two later testified in court. Did they want to join the 26-year-old Texan for Bacardi shots in his room? They’d already begun drinking when one of the guests asked about an unmarked case in the corner. Was it musical instrument? No, a pellet gun. He used it at work. His job was to go hunt down birds that had flown into businesses including Walmart. Soon he was standing by his room’s window showing off his pellet gun to the man. Down below, two motel guests in the La Quinta Inn and Suites hot tub looked up and saw a man with a gun near a fifth-floor window. Someone called 911.

It’s true that had he not touched the pellet gun, no one would have seen him at the window. It’s true that had no one called 911, the cops wouldn’t have come. It’s true that had it not been a gun, the cops wouldn’t have arrived prepared to kill. But none of this changes the fact that Daniel Shaver did nothing wrong.

That didn’t save his life.

Brailsford applied the First Rule of Policing, the newer version which accommodates the fragile fear of cops for whom any hint of a potential threat, no matter how remote, is worthy of death. And given conflicting and confusing instructions, there was almost no chance that Shaver would survive.

Brailsford was prosecuted for the utterly pointless murder of Daniel Shaver. He was acquitted.

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 Reasonably Scared Cop Rule prevailed. Brailsford walks. Shaver remains dead. And it’s all on video, so you can reach your own conclusion.

Still, Shaver exited unarmed, put his hands up, and did his best to comply with the demands of police, who ordered him to lay down on the ground. Soon after that, Officer Philip Brailsford, 26, shot and killed him with a service weapon on which he had etched, “You’re fucked.”

Indeed, Shaver was fucked.