Daniel Shaver Case

Officer Philip Brailsford charged with Second-Degree Murder

The widow of an unarmed man shot and killed by a Mesa police officer filed a wrongful death suit against the Mesa Police Department. The Attorneys For Freedom Law Firm in Chandler, Arizona filed the lawsuit on behalf of Laney Sweet, the widow of Daniel Shaver who was killed on January 18, 2016. The notice of claim asks for $35,000,000 and says police used excessive force when dealing with Daniel Shaver.

In January, police were called out to La Quinta Inn in Mesa after witnesses say they saw a man pointing a rifle out the window. When they were questioning Shaver, Mesa police say he wasn’t listening to commands. At one point, officers say they felt threatened and shot Shaver multiple times while he was crawling towards them. Shaver was pronounced dead at the scene. Shaver was not armed. The Police later found a pellet rifle in his room.

Shaver’s widow has hired Marc Victor, a Chandler attorney with The Attorneys For Freedom Law Firm to handle the case.

“You can’t just shoot someone because you heard they had a weapon. Even if you couldn’t see his hand, that’s not going to be good enough to use physical force to take someone’s life,” said Victor.

A suburban Phoenix police officer, Philip Mitchell Brailsford, of the Mesa Police Department was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of Shaver, an unarmed Texas man.

“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.

Marc Victor, the attorney for Shaver’s widow, Laney Sweet, called the charges a “good first step” to ensuring that justice was served for the victim, his wife, and two young daughters.

“We expect that there will be a fair trial and we expect a just result,” he said.