Police released video Friday showing a parking lot brawl at an Arizona Walmart that left one suspect dead, and another suspect and officer shot.
The brawl broke out when eight officers from the Cottonwood Police Department responded to a call on Saturday, March 21 that a female Walmart employee had been physically assaulted when trying to enter a store restroom, according to a statement from police. When officers arrived, the suspects — identified by police as members of the Gaver family — were in the parking lot attacking a second store employee, and immediately began attacking officers who tried to break up the melee, Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said.
The newly released video appears to show officers and suspects punching and kicking one another, and officers using Tasers, batons and pepper spray on several members of the Gaver family. An officer identified as Sgt. Jeremy Daniels appears to be on the ground in a struggle with a suspect over the officer’s weapon. An officer identified as Officer Rick Hicks appears to shoot one man in the stomach before fatally shooting a man on top of Daniels.
Cottonwood Police Chief Jody Fanning said Daniels was disarmed and shot in the leg by Enoch Gaver, 21, who was in turn shot and killed by Hicks after Hicks shot David Gaver, 28.
“I believe it was justified,” Fanning said of Enoch Gaver’s fatal shooting. “He still had control of Sgt. Daniels’ weapon. He was on top of Sgt. Daniels and Sgt. Daniels had been shot.”
Fanning said he was “incredibly impressed” with the officers, commending them for not administering “any kind of street justice” during the brawl. Daniels was later released from the hospital. Six members of the Gaver family, including a 52-year-old woman, a 55-year-old man, three men in their twenties, and a minor, were taken into custody.
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