US policeman acquitted of killing unarmed man who begged for his life

WASHINGTON: Officials in the southwestern US state of Arizona released a graphic video showing an unarmed man sobbing and begging for his life moments before he was fatally shot by a police officer who was acquitted of murder.

It was the latest in a spate of killings that have prompted criminal charges against law enforcement officials.

Philip Brailsford, who shot and killed Daniel Shaver in the hallway of a hotel in January 2016, was acquitted of seconddegree murder as well as reckless manslaughter by a jury, according to USA Today.

Bodycam footage made public following the verdict showed Shaver, a married 26-yearold father of two, on his knees complying with the officers’ instructions over the course of several minutes and saying ‘ Please don’t shoot me’ and ‘ Please don’t shoot.’

Shaver, who was inebriated, then appeared to reach to his back, possibly to pull up his shorts, before Brailsford fired five bullets at him with his AR15 assault rif le. Unlike several other high-profile cases in which African Americans were killed by police, both the police officer and Shaver were white.

A police report cited by local media said officers were responding to a report of a man seen holding a gun from his fifth floor hotel room.

Officers arrived at Shaver’s hotel room in the Mesa suburb of Phoenix and found him with a woman, whom his widow Laney Sweet later said was visiting with a male colleague who had stepped outside to call his wife.

— AFP