This from The Atlantic three days ago:". . . The case hasn’t attracted the higher degree of attention from the press, the public, or policing-reform activists, partly because body-cam footage of the killing has been withheld from the media and partly because the cop and the dead man were both white, rendering the killing less controversial than one possibly animated by racism. But it warrants more attention than it has received. . . "
Your MesaZona blogger has published more than a few posts in the last year about the killing of Daniel Shaver. They can be found here >
https://mesazona.blogspot.com/search?q=Daniel+Shaver
UPDATE TODAY FROM Courthouse News:
Fate of Mesa Cop Accused of Murder Is in Jury’s Hands
. . . Brailsford says the shooting was justified because he saw Shaver reach toward the waistband of the basketball shorts he was wearing.
Jurors were shown Brailsford’s body camera footage of the shooting during trial. It was the first time an unedited version of the footage has aired publicly, but the footage has not been fully released to the public yet.
Before the trial started, Maricopa County Judge George Foster granted a motion filed by the defense to prevent the media from recording the body cam footage. Portions of the video, including the actual shooting of Shaver, remain sealed until Brailsford’s sentencing or acquittal. . .
READ MORE > Courthouse News
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Here's more from The Atlantic's reporter Conor Friedersdorf:
". . . Even if police killings were rare in America, this case would warrant more attention, not only because of the deadly shots fired by Brailsford, but also due to the confounding commands issued by Langley. It would warrant more attention regardless of the race of the victim. . . . it would still remain the case that American police officers kill many more people overall––and many more unarmed and mentally ill people in particular––than do police officers in other democratic countries.
A Police Killing Without a Hint of Racism
Daniel Shaver begged officers not to shoot him. What role will his death play in the push for law-enforcement reforms?
By Conor Friedersdorf 03 Dec 2017
Daniel Shaver’s case is instructive. His killing deserves more journalistic coverage as a matter of substance and more activist attention as a matter of strategy. Here is how Mark Geragos, an attorney in the case, describes the body-cam footage, which has been shown in court but not released to the public:I know why they have not released it. It’s not bloody. It’s the most chilling, horrific thing you’ve seen in your life. This kid was begging for his life. He raised his hands, did everything the cops told him to do. And then they just executed him. It’s bone chilling. One of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in my life is sitting in a court room with his widow, who watched it for the second time, and she literally went into convulsions. I had to grab her to hold her in a bear hug. It was just awful.Given all that—and understanding that police kill roughly twice as many white as black people every year, with some killings of whites among the most egregious and best-documented unjust killings—the tendency of some journalists and activists to put less emphasis on unjust killings of white people, whether because they are less controversial or less illustrative of disparities, undermines both the journalist’s task of informing the public about the scope of the police-killing problem and the activist’s task of building a winning coalition.
If you’re horrified by Daniel Shaver’s untimely death, yet against Black Lives Matter, consider that Shaver might well be alive if only the Mesa police department had long ago adopted reforms of the sort that Black Lives Matter suggests.
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