Witness to Mesa man’s death at hands of former officer files lawsuit

PHOENIX — A woman who witnessed the shooting death of Daniel Shaver at the hands of a Mesa police officer in 2016 is now suing that officer for allegedly violating her civil rights.

Monique Portillo filed her lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Arizona on Jan. 17, according to court documents.

Portillo is suing Philip Brailsford and seven unidentified Mesa police officers for the “violation of her civil rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.”

She is suing for an undisclosed amount of money.

In the court document, Portillo said Brailsford and the other defendants “illegally arrested, handcuffed and detained” her for more than four hours, “traumatizing and terrorizing” her.

Portillo also said Brailsford “unlawfully shot and killed” Shaver in her presence, “further traumatizing and terrifying her.”

Shaver was shot and killed on Jan. 17, 2016, in the hallway of the La Quinta Inn and Suites near Superstition Springs Boulevard and U.S. 60 after officers responded to a call about a man pointing a gun out of a window.

Body camera footage of the shooting showed a group of officers pointing their guns at Shaver and Portillo and shouting demands at them.

The court documents said Portillo was “thoroughly terrorized and traumatized” by the actions that officers took to get the pair out of the hotel room, including pointing the laser sights on their rifles at them.

Portillo also said not one officer “explained the reason for their presence in the hotel” as she nor Shaver were armed or presented any threat to the defendants. She was quickly put in handcuffs by the officers and said in the documents that no statement of charges was given to her when they did so.

Shortly after she was put in handcuffs, the former Mesa officer “abruptly opened fire” and killed Shaver after he “crawled on his hands and knees toward Brailsford, begging for his life,” the documents said.

After Shaver’s death, Portillo said she was “crying and screaming with fear and trauma while still handcuffed” and was “shouted at by Brailsford” and other officers who told her to “shut the f*** up!”

The court documents also detailed the approximately nine hours that Portillo spent handcuffed before she was allowed to go back to her hotel room. Portillo said she did not believe that she was free to leave during that time and that the force the officers used in her arrest was “unnecessary, objectively unreasonable and excessive.”

The lawsuit argued that the officers’ actions during that time “constituted excessive and unreasonable force” and were “wanton, malicious, intentional and grossly indifferent” to Portillo’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Brailsford faced between 10 and 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and reckless manslaughter, but was found not guilty on all counts last month.

Follow @KTAR923