Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Man fatally shot by Ariz. police officer begged for life
PHOENIX — A Texas man fatally shot by a Mesa police officer in January was heard begging for his life moments before his death, according to a police report released Tuesday morning.
A witness and a transcription of officer video footage describe Daniel Shaver saying “Please don’t shoot me” and “Please don’t shoot,” just before an officer later identified as Philip "Mitch" Brailsford unloaded his service weapon.
Brailsford has been charged with second-degree murder and was terminated from the Police Department.
On Tuesday, the Mesa Police Department released the police report, 911 calls and other material from its investigation of Brailsford's shooting of Shaver, who was unarmed, at a hotel in January.
The material released did not include officers' body camera video from the scene.
Shaver, 26, died after being shot in a hallway outside his room at a Mesa La Quinta Inn & Suites on Jan. 18. Brailsford was charged with one count of second-degree murder in a direct complaint by the County Attorney's Office on March 4.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said body-camera footage obtained from the officer was used in his office's review of the case. The fatal shooting was the result of unjustified deadly force, Montgomery said.
The county attorney's complaint stated Brailsford was "manifesting an extreme indifference to human life recklessly causing the death of another."
Shaver's widow, Laney Sweet, said earlier this month that she had grown more and more frustrated by the lack of details made available to the public, including the circumstances surrounding her husband's death, two months after it occurred. They are the parents of two young girls.
Mesa police shooting victim enjoyed time with young family, wife says
"I can't bring him back, but I will fight for justice for him," Sweet said. "My kids are absolutely heartbroken and I can't fix it."
Court records indicate Shaver could have been intoxicated at the time of his death and may not have understood what police were asking.
Officers were called to the La Quinta Inn shortly after 9 p.m. when guests at the pool reported seeing a person with a gun in a fifth-story window, police said.
Officers arrived at Shaver's hotel room and found him with an unidentified woman, whom Sweet said was visiting with a male colleague who had stepped outside to call his wife.
An unarmed Shaver and the woman were ordered to leave the hotel room and were then told to get on their hands and knees into the hallway, the county attorney's office said. The woman crawled toward the officers and was apprehended without incident.
"Shaver was cooperative, but sometimes confused by the commands and because of his possible intoxication," the report said. "The sergeant told Shaver that if he put his hands behind his back then he would be shot."
Records indicate Shaver was shot by Brailsford as Shaver made a motion with his right hand toward his waistline, possibly to pull his shorts up as they were sagging, the report said. Shaver was declared dead at the scene.
Investigators later found two pellet guns in Shaver's room, police said.
An autopsy report on Shaver has not yet been made public.
On March 21, the Mesa Police Department announced it had terminated Brailsford. Brailsford had 14 days to appeal the decision by Mesa Police Chief John Meza.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/03/29/man-fatally-shot-ariz-police-officer-begged-life/82393582/
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Officer arrested on murder charge in teen’s shooting
8:34 p.m. EDT March 16, 2016
DALLAS — An off-duty Dallas-area police officer was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder and aggravated assault in the shooting death of a 16-year-old suspect, authorities say.
Farmers Branch Police Officer Ken Johnson chased down two burglary suspects in his personal vehicle and opened fire on the teens, according to Chris Livingston, an attorney representing the officer. .
Jose Raul Cruz, 16, was killed and the other juvenile, who also was shot, was hospitalized.
Authorities say that Johnson was taken into custody Wednesday night by Addison, Texas , police officers and is being booked into Dallas County Jail.
The officer says he saw Cruz and Edgar Rodriguez breaking into his personal vehicle at an apartment complex in Addison in suburban Dallas. The suspects took off in a redDodge Charger , and he gave chase in his personal vehicle. Surveillance video taken during the chase appears to show Johnson bump the suspects' vehicle with his own, causing the suspects to spin out.
Moments after the vehicle was stopped, a witness took a video that also appears to show Johnson pointing a weapon at the vehicle. Police have not said if any weapons were found in the suspects' vehicle.
Johnson’s attorney has said he feared for his life. Johnson was not injured.
Farmers Branch Police Chief Sid Fuller said Johnson violated department policies in chasing the teens in his personal vehicle while he was off duty for what would have likely been a misdemeanor offense.
Fuller's department is handling the internal investigation in the case, while Addison police are in charge of the criminal investigation. Fuller said he was waiting for the criminal investigation to conclude before moving forward on any personnel matters.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Cops Woke Up Naked Woman, Ordered Her to Show Them a Gun, Then Killed Her
Deanne Choate wasn’t touching a gun when police entered her room. In fact, they demanded she find the weapon for them—and shot her anyway.
“We hear the shots and all we have to do was look out the window and it was all in plain view,” he said. “There had to be at least three to four shots and there was a space between the first one and the last.”
Once inside, according to the body camera footage that was shown to Choate’s family, cops flicked on the lights and charged for Choate’s bedroom upstairs.
Her son said the 115-pound Choate “is completely naked under there and says to them, ‘Could I have something to put on? I’m naked. I didn’t call you here. What do you want?’”
The cops wanted Musto’s .22 derringer.
“Where’s the gun?” one cop repeated, Weddington said. The civil lawsuit has the cops repeating the command: “We know you have a gun.”
Weddington said the cops were certain that—despite her barely awake, fully naked state—Choate was dangerous.
“They tell her ‘Ma’am, you need to get out of bed so we can clear this room.’
“She says, ‘I’m 53 years old I don’t just bounce out of bed.’”
As they hand her a hooded sweatshirt to cover herself, Weddington says Choate allegedly discovers the derringer under the covers and informs the cops.
“She says, ‘Oh, here it is.’
“She goes to lift her blanket and get up and the cop says ‘Drop the gun. Drop the fucking gun… Boom-boom-boom-boom.”
Choate was struck twice in the chest and once in the abdomen, according to Weddington who has a summary of the autopsy. (The Johnson County morgue refused to disclose any of its related findings and information was suppressed because a staffer there says the case remains under investigation.)
play iconABC's 'Black-ish' Tackles Police Brutality In The Perfect WayABC's 'Black-ish' Tackles Police Brutality In The Perfect Wayplay iconTexas State Trooper Fired Over Sandra Bland's ArrestTexas State Trooper Fired Over Sandra Bland's Arrestplay iconEx-Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw Found Guilty Of RapeEx-Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw Found Guilty Of Rape
According to the civil lawsuit, “one officer commented after the shooting and killing Deanne ‘I knew she had a gun the whole time.’”
Weddington added that the video footage shows cops approaching the bed for the first glimpse of any gun. “Never once do you see that pistol until cops pull it from her knee after lifting the blanket,” he said.
The gunshots still echoing off the walls, Weddington says one of the officers allegedly orders everybody to “shut off your cameras.”
Directly across the street Smethers could see and hear the wretched aftermath.
“We heard Andy [Musto] screaming,” Smethers said. “He was handcuffed behind his pickup truck and screaming ‘You didn’t have to shoot her!’”
He said cops spirited Musto away and then allegedly did something peculiar.
“When Theresa and I saw they had taken her from the bedroom and laid her by the front door after she was shot we were confused,” he said. “They moved her in there and they covered her with a red blanket and then the ambulance showed up.”
The removal of Choate’s bullet-riddled corpse seems especially unorthodox given that her death and all of the factors that caused it becomes key evidence. Disturbing anything in that room (especially the remains before photographing it, examining it externally, and documenting the results) can be detrimental to preserving a crime scene’s integrity.
“Fragile evidence (which can be easily contaminated, lost or altered) must also be collected and/or preserved to maintain chain of custody and to assist in determination of cause, manner and circumstances of death,” according to The National Institute of Justice’s Guide to Death Scene Investigation.
It’s the almost ambivalent nature of the responders after the shooting that vexes Choate’s family the most. Her son Weddington, an IT tech, suggests nobody even tried to resuscitate her.
“They didn’t even do any lifesaving techniques,” Weddington said. “They grab her two arms and two legs and dragged her out into the hallway and then lay her there and leave her there until the paramedics get there.”
And when they do get a look at her the paramedics seem to be more concerned with the well-being of the cops. “They take her pulse for a total of two seconds and then they turn around and ask ‘Is everybody else alright?’
“They don’t even attempt to save her life.”
Trying to get an official response from police proved to be difficult, constantly being bounced around between various departments who deflected most questions or reserved comment in lieu of the civil lawsuit.
The Olathe Police Department, who led an internal investigation, sent The Daily Beast old press releases.
In one dated April 1, 2015 Choate is described as having “failed to follow officer’s verbal commands involving a handgun” as a justification for firing “their weapons striking her.”
Gardner Police Chief James Pruetting said he couldn’t discuss any claims made about the bodycam footage, questions on whether the crime scene wasn’t preserved when Choate’s body was removed from the bedroom, and the lax resuscitation efforts.
“We don’t comment on pending litigation and that’s at the direction of our city attorney,” Chief Preutting told The Daily Beast.
He did confirm that two of the “cleared” officers had more than two years’ worth of experience and the third cop was on the force for almost 11 years.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe’s rep would only provide a press release from May 18 in response to our questions.
The press release called the shooting death of Choate “justified under Kansas law” and added that “no criminal action will be taken.”
In the civil lawsuit, the family specifically takes aim at the Gardner Police Department for its “deliberate indifference,” “unnecessarily aggressive behavior,” “tortious conduct,” and suggests the cops’ actions violated Choate’s constitutional rights with their “impulsive, reckless and excessive use of deadly force.”
The lawsuit goes so far as to call the investigation after the deadly shooting a cover-up by the Gardner Police Department, which is “consistently and systemically working to hide and protect from public disclosure the identity and role officers involved in such conduct. … The City’s training and supervision deficiencies contributed to the pattern and practice of the use of excessive and unreasonable force by the City’s officers, including the officers involved in the shooting death of Deanne.”
Weddington goes even further to blame the prosecutors for trying to bury the video evidence and silence his family with a settlement worth “not more than $200,000.”
“There was nothing right about any of it,” Weddington said. “They tried to pay us off and sign a paper to get us to not let the video become public.
“So they were trying to get us to not sue them and not to make this public.”
The prosecutors and some of the investigators arranged a meeting with Choate’s family and admitted her death was “a horrible misunderstanding.” Weddington remembered the prosecutors saying that “She didn’t threaten them and they tried to prevent us from seeing the video.
“They said the video ‘was not pretty’ and ‘You don’t want to watch the video,’” Weddington added.
“They wanted us to sign off on the video so they had control and never had to release it, and so the public would never know how much they messed up,” he said. “They make their own laws.”
Weddington went on to say the whole matter could have ended peacefully.
“They could have called me. They showed up at my house anyway at 4 a.m.”
Weddington continued inveighing against the police.
“They could have called me and said ‘Your mom is apparently suicidal and we can’t get in contact with her; she’s not coming out of her room… I was no more than a 10-minute drive away,” he said as the sting of the loss overcame him.
That night, Weddington admits his mom’s boozing may have contributed to her quarreling with her boyfriend but that she would have been more than capable of obeying the cops.
“I know my mother and it didn’t matter how much she drank she was never out of control,” Weddington said. “She’s a biker chick. Probably the hippest grandma you’ve ever met.”
All Weddington and his sister Michele can do now is fight for their mother’s good name.
“Mom was laid back but also liked to have a good time and liked riding her motorcycle, or water skiing, or camping in the Ozarks, but she also went to church every weekend,” Weddington said.
Most of all her son wants it to be known that there was nothing in her life that would warrant going out in this way.
“She didn’t even have a speeding ticket and worked the same job for 15-20 years,” he said of her job as a receiving manager for a condiment company. “She was a respectable person by all means.”
His mother didn’t have much time to plead her case before cops opened fire.
“If they just would have said, ‘We messed up. We’re sorry. We panicked and shot her and it was a mistake.’ We probably wouldn’t have sued.
“But instead you’re not going to apologize. You’re not going to admit your faults. And you’re going to let the department cover it up,” Weddington said.
Weddington has since gotten a tattoo titled “Mother” featuring a cherub hiding his tears in his forearm and wants to make sure nobody else in Gardner experiences his kind of anguish.
“We need to get some reform in that police department so this doesn’t happen again.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/03/cops-woke-up-naked-woman-ordered-her-to-show-them-a-gun-then-killed-her.html
M.L. NESTEL
“We hear the shots and all we have to do was look out the window and it was all in plain view,” he said. “There had to be at least three to four shots and there was a space between the first one and the last.”
Once inside, according to the body camera footage that was shown to Choate’s family, cops flicked on the lights and charged for Choate’s bedroom upstairs.
Her son said the 115-pound Choate “is completely naked under there and says to them, ‘Could I have something to put on? I’m naked. I didn’t call you here. What do you want?’”
The cops wanted Musto’s .22 derringer.
“Where’s the gun?” one cop repeated, Weddington said. The civil lawsuit has the cops repeating the command: “We know you have a gun.”
Weddington said the cops were certain that—despite her barely awake, fully naked state—Choate was dangerous.
“They tell her ‘Ma’am, you need to get out of bed so we can clear this room.’
“She says, ‘I’m 53 years old I don’t just bounce out of bed.’”
As they hand her a hooded sweatshirt to cover herself, Weddington says Choate allegedly discovers the derringer under the covers and informs the cops.
“She says, ‘Oh, here it is.’
“She goes to lift her blanket and get up and the cop says ‘Drop the gun. Drop the fucking gun… Boom-boom-boom-boom.”
Choate was struck twice in the chest and once in the abdomen, according to Weddington who has a summary of the autopsy. (The Johnson County morgue refused to disclose any of its related findings and information was suppressed because a staffer there says the case remains under investigation.)
play iconABC's 'Black-ish' Tackles Police Brutality In The Perfect WayABC's 'Black-ish' Tackles Police Brutality In The Perfect Wayplay iconTexas State Trooper Fired Over Sandra Bland's ArrestTexas State Trooper Fired Over Sandra Bland's Arrestplay iconEx-Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw Found Guilty Of RapeEx-Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw Found Guilty Of Rape
According to the civil lawsuit, “one officer commented after the shooting and killing Deanne ‘I knew she had a gun the whole time.’”
Weddington added that the video footage shows cops approaching the bed for the first glimpse of any gun. “Never once do you see that pistol until cops pull it from her knee after lifting the blanket,” he said.
The gunshots still echoing off the walls, Weddington says one of the officers allegedly orders everybody to “shut off your cameras.”
Directly across the street Smethers could see and hear the wretched aftermath.
“We heard Andy [Musto] screaming,” Smethers said. “He was handcuffed behind his pickup truck and screaming ‘You didn’t have to shoot her!’”
He said cops spirited Musto away and then allegedly did something peculiar.
“When Theresa and I saw they had taken her from the bedroom and laid her by the front door after she was shot we were confused,” he said. “They moved her in there and they covered her with a red blanket and then the ambulance showed up.”
The removal of Choate’s bullet-riddled corpse seems especially unorthodox given that her death and all of the factors that caused it becomes key evidence. Disturbing anything in that room (especially the remains before photographing it, examining it externally, and documenting the results) can be detrimental to preserving a crime scene’s integrity.
“Fragile evidence (which can be easily contaminated, lost or altered) must also be collected and/or preserved to maintain chain of custody and to assist in determination of cause, manner and circumstances of death,” according to The National Institute of Justice’s Guide to Death Scene Investigation.
It’s the almost ambivalent nature of the responders after the shooting that vexes Choate’s family the most. Her son Weddington, an IT tech, suggests nobody even tried to resuscitate her.
“They didn’t even do any lifesaving techniques,” Weddington said. “They grab her two arms and two legs and dragged her out into the hallway and then lay her there and leave her there until the paramedics get there.”
And when they do get a look at her the paramedics seem to be more concerned with the well-being of the cops. “They take her pulse for a total of two seconds and then they turn around and ask ‘Is everybody else alright?’
“They don’t even attempt to save her life.”
Trying to get an official response from police proved to be difficult, constantly being bounced around between various departments who deflected most questions or reserved comment in lieu of the civil lawsuit.
The Olathe Police Department, who led an internal investigation, sent The Daily Beast old press releases.
In one dated April 1, 2015 Choate is described as having “failed to follow officer’s verbal commands involving a handgun” as a justification for firing “their weapons striking her.”
Gardner Police Chief James Pruetting said he couldn’t discuss any claims made about the bodycam footage, questions on whether the crime scene wasn’t preserved when Choate’s body was removed from the bedroom, and the lax resuscitation efforts.
“We don’t comment on pending litigation and that’s at the direction of our city attorney,” Chief Preutting told The Daily Beast.
He did confirm that two of the “cleared” officers had more than two years’ worth of experience and the third cop was on the force for almost 11 years.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe’s rep would only provide a press release from May 18 in response to our questions.
The press release called the shooting death of Choate “justified under Kansas law” and added that “no criminal action will be taken.”
In the civil lawsuit, the family specifically takes aim at the Gardner Police Department for its “deliberate indifference,” “unnecessarily aggressive behavior,” “tortious conduct,” and suggests the cops’ actions violated Choate’s constitutional rights with their “impulsive, reckless and excessive use of deadly force.”
The lawsuit goes so far as to call the investigation after the deadly shooting a cover-up by the Gardner Police Department, which is “consistently and systemically working to hide and protect from public disclosure the identity and role officers involved in such conduct. … The City’s training and supervision deficiencies contributed to the pattern and practice of the use of excessive and unreasonable force by the City’s officers, including the officers involved in the shooting death of Deanne.”
Weddington goes even further to blame the prosecutors for trying to bury the video evidence and silence his family with a settlement worth “not more than $200,000.”
“There was nothing right about any of it,” Weddington said. “They tried to pay us off and sign a paper to get us to not let the video become public.
“So they were trying to get us to not sue them and not to make this public.”
The prosecutors and some of the investigators arranged a meeting with Choate’s family and admitted her death was “a horrible misunderstanding.” Weddington remembered the prosecutors saying that “She didn’t threaten them and they tried to prevent us from seeing the video.
“They said the video ‘was not pretty’ and ‘You don’t want to watch the video,’” Weddington added.
“They wanted us to sign off on the video so they had control and never had to release it, and so the public would never know how much they messed up,” he said. “They make their own laws.”
Weddington went on to say the whole matter could have ended peacefully.
“They could have called me. They showed up at my house anyway at 4 a.m.”
Weddington continued inveighing against the police.
“They could have called me and said ‘Your mom is apparently suicidal and we can’t get in contact with her; she’s not coming out of her room… I was no more than a 10-minute drive away,” he said as the sting of the loss overcame him.
That night, Weddington admits his mom’s boozing may have contributed to her quarreling with her boyfriend but that she would have been more than capable of obeying the cops.
“I know my mother and it didn’t matter how much she drank she was never out of control,” Weddington said. “She’s a biker chick. Probably the hippest grandma you’ve ever met.”
All Weddington and his sister Michele can do now is fight for their mother’s good name.
“Mom was laid back but also liked to have a good time and liked riding her motorcycle, or water skiing, or camping in the Ozarks, but she also went to church every weekend,” Weddington said.
Most of all her son wants it to be known that there was nothing in her life that would warrant going out in this way.
“She didn’t even have a speeding ticket and worked the same job for 15-20 years,” he said of her job as a receiving manager for a condiment company. “She was a respectable person by all means.”
His mother didn’t have much time to plead her case before cops opened fire.
“If they just would have said, ‘We messed up. We’re sorry. We panicked and shot her and it was a mistake.’ We probably wouldn’t have sued.
“But instead you’re not going to apologize. You’re not going to admit your faults. And you’re going to let the department cover it up,” Weddington said.
Weddington has since gotten a tattoo titled “Mother” featuring a cherub hiding his tears in his forearm and wants to make sure nobody else in Gardner experiences his kind of anguish.
“We need to get some reform in that police department so this doesn’t happen again.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/03/cops-woke-up-naked-woman-ordered-her-to-show-them-a-gun-then-killed-her.html
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