WALSH: Police Murdered This Unarmed Man, But The Media Doesn't Care Because He's White
Brailsford was called to a hotel in Mesa back in January of 2016 on reports that someone had been pointing a rifle out of a window. Daniel Shaver, very drunk at the time, had apparently been messing around with a few pellet guns that he used in his pest control job. Exceedingly stupid behavior on his part, but not deserving of the death penalty. Still, Brailsford and the other responding officers could not have known that they were pellet guns, so it's understandable that they were on edge.
But this is where it gets not-so-understandable. Shaver emerges stumbling out of his hotel room. He's told to get on the ground, and he immediately complies. Shaver attempts to follow every instruction shouted at him, but he has difficulty because the instructions make no sense. Here's a verbatim transcript of everything Brailsford told Shaver to do, as he pointed his rifle at him and threatened repeatedly to kill him:
"lie on the ground," "put both hands on top of your head and interlace your fingers," "take your feet and cross your left foot over your right foot," "keep your feet crossed," "put both hands flat in front of you" (while they're on his head and interlaced?),
"push yourself to a kneeling position" (have you ever tried to push yourself up while your arms are extended all the way in front of you?),
"put both hands in the air," "crawl towards me" (with his hands in the air?),
"stop," "crawl," "keep your legs crossed" (while crawling?), "put your hands in the air," "keep your legs crossed," "crawl" (so he's supposed to crawl again with his hands in the air and his legs crossed). In the midst of this flurry of hysterical, arbitrary commands, as Brailsford continually reminds Shaver that he'll die if he "makes a mistake," Shaver cries and begs for his life.
Then comes the fatal moment. As Shaver crawls, awkwardly and wobbly, trying to keep up with this deadly game of Simon Says, his pants begin to fall down. He reaches to pull them up and Brailsford immediately sprays him with bullets. Shaver followed his ridiculous instructions for five minutes and still wound up dead.
Of course, Brailsford's defense was that Shaver reached for his waistband. Fine. But what was he worried about? That Shaver would pull a rifle from his basketball shorts? And even if he did have a gun, how was he going to pull it out and get off a shot from the crawling position? And what had Shaver done during this interaction to at all suggest that he was a threat? He was emphatically attempting to comply with every command. And why didn't Brailsford just walk over, while the man was laying prostrate on the ground, and cuff him? The officers on the scene had ample opportunity to detain Shaver without firing a shot.
Instead they chose to have him dance around like a trained monkey. And the monkey died because he didn't want to dance with his shorts around his ankles.
By the way, anyone who would think of defending the cops here, try this: lie on the ground, interlace your fingers, put your hands out in front of you, cross your legs, and crawl with your hands in the air. Now imagining attempting this same act of contortion with police officers pointing rifles at you and a guy shouting that he'll kill you if you mess up. Now imagine all of that, but you've had a few beers. Do you think you would have gotten out of this alive?