Daniel Shaver Video: Acquittal, Pension, and Settlements

The Daniel Shaver video is the Mesa, Arizona police bodycam recording from January 18, 2016, showing 26-year-old Daniel Shaver sobbing and crawling down a La Quinta Inn hallway while trying to follow contradictory commands from officers, before Officer Philip Brailsford shot him five times with an AR-15. Shaver was unarmed. Brailsford was charged with second-degree murder, acquitted in December 2017, and the full video was released to the public the next day.¹

What the Video Shows

Mesa police were called to the La Quinta Inn & Suites that evening after a guest reported seeing what looked like a rifle pointed out of a fifth-floor window. The object was a pellet gun. Shaver, a pest control worker from Granbury, Texas, had been drinking in his room with two acquaintances and had shown them a pellet rifle with a scope used for his job.²

Officers ordered Shaver and Monique Portillo, one of his companions, into the hallway. Portillo was handcuffed after crawling toward the officers. Shaver came out next and lay face down. Sergeant Charles Langley, the senior officer on scene, then delivered a stream of commands: keep your legs crossed, push up to a kneeling position, put your hands in the air, don’t move them toward your waist, crawl forward. Langley repeatedly warned Shaver that any wrong move could be treated as a threat. At one point he shouted, “If you move, we’re going to consider that a threat and we are going to deal with it and you may not survive it.”³

Shaver, visibly crying, told officers he was not trying to do anything wrong and pleaded, “Please don’t shoot me.”⁴ As he crawled forward on his hands and knees, his loose basketball shorts began sliding down. He reached his right hand toward his waistband. Brailsford fired five rounds from his AR-15, killing him.⁵ No firearm was found on his body. A subsequent police investigation concluded his movement appeared consistent with pulling up his shorts.⁶

Why the Full Video Wasn’t Released Until After the Verdict

For almost two years, the public saw only a redacted version that stopped short of the shooting itself. A judge sealed the full footage in 2016, and at trial Judge George Foster barred media from recording or distributing the video shown to jurors, citing concern for Brailsford’s fair-trial rights.⁷ The unredacted footage was released on December 8, 2017, one day after Brailsford’s acquittal, and spread rapidly online.¹

The Criminal Trial and Acquittal

Brailsford was fired by the Mesa Police Department in March 2016 after an internal investigation found policy violations, including that his AR-15 had the phrase “You’re Fucked” etched on the inside of the dust cover.⁸ He was charged with second-degree murder. His trial began on October 26, 2017.⁷

Judge Foster excluded the rifle inscription from evidence. Jurors never saw it.⁹ The defense’s use-of-force expert, Emanuel Kapelsohn, testified that officers are trained to presume suspects are armed until searched, that submissive behavior can be a ruse, and that Shaver’s hand movement was “inherently threatening.” On cross-examination, asked whether the movement could have been a loss of balance while crawling, Kapelsohn answered, “Could’ve been.”¹⁰

On December 7, 2017, the jury found Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder and not guilty of any lesser charge.⁵

What Happened to Sergeant Langley

Langley, who gave the commands throughout the encounter, was never criminally charged. He took an early retirement from the Mesa Police Department after the shooting. A federal district court later ruled, in the civil case, that Langley’s “treatment of and instructions to Mr. Shaver may have created an environment that heightened the likelihood” of the shooting, and denied him qualified immunity, finding a jury could conclude he acted with “reckless or callous indifference.”³

Brailsford’s Pension

After his acquittal, Brailsford still had an open appeal of his 2016 firing. In August 2018 he signed a settlement with the city of Mesa that resolved the appeal and, through a specific mechanism, gave him access to a pension. The city temporarily rehired him for 42 days without pay or duties. A department spokesman confirmed he was “not in any way fulfilling a capacity as a police officer” during those weeks. The sole purpose was to make him eligible to apply for an accidental disability pension.¹¹

In October 2018, the local board of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System reviewed independent medical evaluations finding that Brailsford had PTSD stemming from the shooting that “totally and permanently prevents him from performing a reasonable range of duties within his job classification.” The board granted the pension.¹²

He receives $2,569.21 per month, tax-free, for life — roughly $31,000 per year.¹³ The pension can be revisited only if a later medical evaluation shows recovery or if the retirement system’s Board of Trustees finds a statutory reason for a rehearing. The settlement also required the city’s insurance provider to set aside up to $3 million for Brailsford’s legal defense and any related lawsuit costs. He is permanently ineligible to be rehired by the Mesa Police Department.¹²

Civil Settlements with Shaver’s Family

Shaver’s widow, Laney Sweet, and his parents, Norma and Grady Shaver, filed separate wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in 2017. The cases were consolidated as Sweet, et al. v. City of Mesa, et al. Sweet’s complaint sought $75 million.¹⁴

The city settled in two stages. In July 2021, Norma and Grady Shaver settled for $1.5 million.¹⁵ On November 22, 2022, Sweet and her two children reached a separate $8 million settlement, approved by a probate court, with all claims dismissed with prejudice.¹⁶ The city did not admit liability. As part of the agreement, a tree and bench honoring Shaver were to be placed in Mesa’s Countryside Park.¹⁷

Sweet’s attorneys called Brailsford’s criminal trial a “sham” and described six years of city litigation as a “malicious campaign.” Sweet said in a statement that “no amount of money can undo the transgressions that cruelly removed Daniel from his family’s lives forever.”¹⁸

The Federal Investigation

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation and subpoenaed Mesa Police Department records related to the shooting.⁸ As of the last available reporting, no federal charges had been filed. In connection with the 2022 civil settlement, Sweet’s legal team publicly urged the DOJ to “swiftly proceed with its ongoing investigation and announce the federal criminal charges of officers involved.”¹⁷

1
Washington Post. Judge Releases Video of Police Shooting of Daniel Shaver
2
Arizona Republic. Witness: Man Shot by Ex-Mesa Police Officer Cried for His Life
3
Courthouse News Service. Sweet v. City of Mesa, District Court Ruling
4
Courthouse News Service. Police Shooting Victim Begged for Life, Witness Testifies
5
Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Maricopa County Attorney’s Office News Release
6
KSAT. Wife of Texas Man Killed by Police in Arizona Settles Suit
7
Courthouse News Service. Jurors See Footage of Officer Shooting Unarmed Man
8
Courthouse News Service. Feds Subpoena Mesa Arizona Police in Fatal Shooting
9
ACLU. “You’re Fucked” – The Acquittal of Officer Brailsford
10
Berghahn Journals. Social Analysis – Brailsford Trial Analysis
11
BBC News. Officer Who Shot Unarmed Man Gets Pension
12
NBC News. Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Sobbing Man Temporarily Rehired to Apply for Pension
13
ABC15. After Murder Acquittal, Mesa Ex-Cop Philip Brailsford Made a Pension Deal
14
CBS News. Wife of Texas Man Killed by Police in Arizona Settles Wrongful Death Suit
15
Arizona Republic. Daniel Shaver’s Parents Settle With Mesa for $1.5 Million
16
Arizona Republic. Widow of Daniel Shaver Reaches $8 Million Settlement With Mesa
17
ABC15. $8M Settlement After Deadly Mesa Police Shooting of Daniel Shaver
18
NBC DFW. Wife of Granbury Man Killed by Police in Arizona Settles Lawsuit