WATCH ABOVE: A brawl outside an Arizona Walmart leads to a chaotic scene between police and six members of one family and ends with one suspect dead and a police officer shot in the leg. Matt Mauro reports.
COTTONWOOD, ARIZ. – Police in Cottonwood, Arizona are continuing their investigation after a wild brawl between officers and members of a family that escalated into the shooting death of a suspect and the wounding of an officer.
The wild melee, which started with altercation with an employee outside a Walmart store, involved kicks, punches, strikes with police batons, pepper spray and tasers. It left one member of the Gaver family dead, another wounded in the stomach and an officer shot in the leg.
The scene was captured on a police vehicle dashboard camera. Reports are that police were called to the store after a disagreement over a washroom while it was in use by the Gaver’s mother.
Up to six members of the Gaver family were seen fighting four officers in the video. At one point a man wrestles on top of an officer and struggles for control of his gun. A shot is fired and when the family members continue to fight, further shots are fired, resulting in the death of Enoch Gaver and the wounding of David Gaver.
In reviewing the video to the media, Cottonwood Police Chief Jody Fanning said that Enoch Gaver had grabbed Sgt. Jeremy Daniels’ gun and shot him in the leg. He said Officer Rick Hicks used his baton several times to subdue Enoch Gaver but resorted to shooting him. Moments later he also shot David Gaver in the stomach.
Fanning said his officers were justified in the use of force because Sgt. Daniels had already been shot and the suspect still had control of the officer’s gun. He said he was impressed with his officers’ conduct and at no point in the brawl did the police resort to inappropriate force or ‘street justice.’
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