Prosecutors charged Philip Brailsford more than five weeks after Daniel Shaver, 26, was shot and killed in a Mesa hotel room

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A police officer from Mesa, Arizona, who fatally shot an unarmed man in January has been charged with second-degree murder, prosecutors announced on Friday night.



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Maricopa County prosecutors charged Officer Philip Brailsford more than five weeks after Daniel Shaver, 26, was shot and killed in a Mesa hotel room.

“After carefully reviewing the relevant facts and circumstances, we have determined that the use of deadly physical force was not justified in this instance,” Maricopa County attorney Bill Montgomery said in a statement.

On the evening of 18 January, someone in Shaver’s hotel room pointed a pellet gun out of the window, prompting other guests to call police, authorities said. Officers arrived at the hotel and asked Shaver and a female companion to leave the room.

Once in the hotel hallway, the woman was detained. When police asked Shaver to crawl toward them on his hands and knees, he “made a motion with his right hand toward his waistline”, according to prosecutors.

Brailsford opened fire, shooting Shaver five times, authorities said. Shaver was unarmed. Brailsford and Shaver are both white.

Police said they later found two pellet guns inside the hotel room. Shaver’s widow, Laney Sweet, said in later statements that Shaver carried the pellet guns for his pest control job, and that he was on a business trip in Mesa at the time of the shooting.

Sweet has also alleged that Mesa police did not inform her of Shaver’s death until nearly four days after he was shot. Sweet and Shaver had two daughters together.

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In a statement on Friday Sweet commended Maricopa prosecutors for filing charges, calling it “the first step towards justice for Daniel and his family”.

Sweet has filed a $35m notice of claim in her pending wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Mesa.

Mesa police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brailsford could not be reached for comment.

Brailsford is next scheduled to appear in court on 15 March. He is the second officer to be charged in connection with a fatal shooting in 2016.

On Wednesday, authorities in Alabama charged a Montgomery police officer with murder in the death of Greg Gunn.