EMesa Officer Philip Brailsford found not guilty of murder in shooting of unarmed man
Uriel J. Garcia, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 4:18 p.m. MT Dec. 7, 2017 | Updated 7:51 p.m. MT Dec. 7, 2017
A Maricopa County jury on Thursdayfound 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 packed courtroom in Maricopa County Superior Court was quiet after one of Judge George Foster's clerks read the verdict.
Brailsford was one of two officers in Arizona since 2005 who had been charged with murder in connection with an on-duty shooting.
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Shaver was kneeling, crying and begging not to be shot after he was confronted by six Mesa police officers in a La Quinta Inn & Suites hallway Jan. 18, 2016. Brailsford, who was fired two months after the shooting, testified that he fired his AR-15 rifle five times because it appeared Shaver was reaching for a gun.
“If this situation happened exactly as it did that time, I would have done the same thing," Brailsford said in his testimony.
Laney Sweet, Shaver's widow, said she had no comment to make about the verdict as, crying, she exited an elevator with family.
Brailsford's lawyer, Michael Piccarreta, said he had expected the jury would come back with a positive outcome for his client.
“We had confidence that the jury would recognize this as a tragedy, not a murder, and that Mitch Brailsford acted in a split-second as he was trained," he said.
After the verdict, Brailsford and his family were escorted by a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy out of the courtroom through a back door.
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