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A former police officer from Mesa, Arizona, who was acquitted two years ago after the shooting death of an unarmed man, videotaped, pleading: "Please, do not shoot me not on "was rehired temporarily by his service last year so that he could apply for an accidental disability pension. .
Philip Mitchell Brailsford, 28, has now retired, earning him a tax-free pension of $ 31,000 a year – and his lawyer confirmed Friday that the settlement was caused by he was suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the shootings. Daniel Shaver from Texas.
Shaver was seen on a video of police police crawling on the floor of a Mesa hotel and sobbing all his life before being shot – a case that drew national attention to the # Use of lethal force.
"Anyone going through what she has experienced would be traumatized and suffer emotional distress, so it was better to retire for health reasons," said Brailsford's lawyer Michael Piccarreta.
He added that Brailsford had sought to negotiate the agreement instead of a regular hearing to find his job.
Piccarreta also believes that if his client had wanted to follow an audience, "they would not have found any justification to dismiss him".
The Brailsford pension settlement was unearthed this week after KPNX, an affiliate of NBC, and other local media outlets obtained documents detailing its authorization last November to the department's pension board. Mesa police station.
Brailsford had attended a pension council meeting in October, during which council members said they had reviewed his independent medical assessments and that a doctor had felt that his state of health "totally prevented him and permanently to carry out a reasonable range of tasks falling within its classification ". They also thanked him for his services to the city.
Brailsford was involved in the fatal murder of Shaver on January 18, 2016 and was fired two months later. His trial began late 2017, six weeks before the acquittal of his second degree murder charge. Last August, he was rehired temporarily by the Mesa police as part of the settlement that allowed him to claim accidental disability pension benefits.
The settlement also states that Mr. Mesa will allocate up to $ 3 million to Brailsford to defend himself and settle disputes related to the case, and that the city will give potential employers a "neutral benchmark" for him. . He can not be rehired by Mesa.
In a statement provided by city spokesman Steven Wright, Brailsford initially asked to appeal his dismissal the day after his announcement, but this procedure was suspended until the resolution of his criminal case.
"At the time Mr. Brailsford was applying for medical retirement, he was unpaid and was not assigned any police officer duties." Accidental disability pension claim began for Mr. Brailsford once the lawsuit was concluded, "the statement said.
As there was no resolution allowing Brailsford to appeal his dismissal, Piccarreta added, he was "never really put to an end" and his acquittal at the trial showed that he "was not there." had never had a real end because the shot was justified.
The charge contained a flickering video of the body camera showing the moment the police opened fire.
Shaver, 26, a pest control officer, was in Mesa on business when he showed acquaintances in his hotel room an air rifle used to exterminate birds. At one point, he waved the air rifle out of the window of his fifth floor, prompting a witness to inform the hotel reception, which led the police to be called. Police said that he had been drinking at the time.
When the police arrived, they ordered Shaver out of his room and lie face down in a hallway and refrain from any sudden movement, under penalty of being shot.
"Please, do not shoot me," Shaver begged before he was ordered to crawl to the officers. As he walked slowly, he reached for the belt of his shorts.
This action led Brailsford to fire his rifle, he said, as he thought Shaver was grabbing a handgun.
Although no firearms were found on Shaver's body, two pellet guns related to his pest control work were found in his room.
The investigating detective agreed that Shaver's move looked like he was stealing a gun, but he also said that it was as if Shaver was putting up his basketball shorts that had fallen while he was ordered to crawl.
The investigator noted that he saw nothing that could have prevented officers from simply handcuffing Shaver because he was down.
The shooting led Shaver's family to take legal action for alleged death of $ 75 million in federal court and the Department of Justice last year to open an investigation into what had happened. past, according to KPNX. A family lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest developments in the case.
A spokesman for the state's public security personnel pension system, who checks whether pension applications are processed properly and that decisions made by local councils comply with the guidelines, said that "nothing can not be examined by our agency "as long as the law of the state is respected.
Eugene O Donnell, a former police officer and professor at the John Jay Criminal Justice College in New York City, said the city of Mesa had decided to temporarily rehire Brailsford so he could apply for a pension. perception that the Shaver case was a "bad shot".
"With all the chords, the good guys, the bad guys and the ugly ones are buried in agreement," said O Donnell. "For Mesa, they probably just want to move on because they really turned people against the police, who see it as a justifiable shootout."
"The police have been tarnished by the events and are facing a lack of enthusiasm," he added, "which is a vital ingredient in doing their job. "
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