An Arizona police officer, who shot an unarmed man in a hotel in January 2016, was found not guilty by the jury on Thursday.

Philip "Mitch" Brailsford, 27, was acquitted by a Maricopa County jury of second-degree murder of 26-year-old Daniel Shaver who was shot and killed at an Arizona hotel two years ago. He was also found not guilty of the charge of manslaughter.

Brailsford first encountered Shaver, after a clerk at La Quinta Inn & Suites in Mesa, Arizona, called the police, after witnessing a person pointing a rifle out a fifth-floor window of the facility on Jan. 18, 2016, Dallas News reported.

Shaver was with a woman named Monique Portillo at the time. After ordering both to exit the room, Brailsford told Portillo to approach the police so that she could be handcuffed. Shaver, on the other hand, was told to get on the floor.

According to a written description recorded by the police of the events, Shaver was "compliant and offered no resistance." Even though he was drunk, as confirmed by Portillo later, Shaver answered all the questions asked by the police coherently, saying, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir."

At some point during the interrogation, Shaver attempted to move from his position on the ground, which is when the law enforcement officer accompanying Brailsford, Sgt. Charles Langley said, "If you do that again, we are shooting you." At this, a sobbing Shaver replied, "Please don't shoot me."

As Shaver struggled to keep his legs crossed and his hands above his head in that kneeling position, one of the officers yells, "If you think you’re going to fall you better fall on your face. Your hands go to the small of your back, we are going to shoot you,"

The officers then told Shaver to slowly crawl towards them. As he was doing so, Shaver reached toward his waistband. Suspecting that Shaver was armed, Brailsford cried "Don’t!" before shooting him five times. Shaver was pronounced dead at the scene.

After an investigation, it was discovered that Shaver was probably reaching to pull up his pants since no weapons were found on his body. Shaver’s gesture that led to his death was consistent with both "attempting to pull his shorts up as they were falling off" and "someone drawing a pistol from their waist band," according to police records.

As it turns out, the gun that the clerk spotted Shaver pointing at people in his room was a pellet pistol that the victim was using to kill pests in the room, prior to his shooting. Portillo corroborated this fact, stating that earlier that night Shaver was showing a male colleague his pellet gun.

After Brailsford was declared not guilty, the video of Shaver’s death was released by Shaver’s wife's attorney. Shaver’s wife, Laney Sweet, sued Mesa Police Department for $75 million. "That’s an execution pure and simple. The Justice system miserably failed Daniel and his family," Sweet’s attorney, Mark Geragos said.

Brailsford’s attorney, Michael Piccarreta told the Arizona Republic, "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."

Brailsford was fired from the task force after the shooting. He was also found in violation of his department’s code of conduct as he had inscribed his AR-15 rifle with the words "You’re F****d," Heavy.com reported.

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