Recent DA report contradicts video evidence in 2022 shooting

Reader discretion advised: This article contains depictions of police violence.

Reports on the 2022 police shooting of Jacori Shaw are mired in inconsistencies, and Shaw’s death may leave many questions unanswered in another local death—the homicide of Anna Marie Scott. 

Shaw was wanted on felony gun charges, including possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm and discharging a firearm stemming from a Dec. 21, 2021 incident in downtown Reno. He was also wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Scott, whose body was found in a burning vehicle on an I-580 overpass Feb. 3, 2022. 

The Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, however, recently released its report on the shooting of Shaw. He was killed during a foot chase by officers comprising a multiagency unit with detectives from the Reno Police Department, Sparks Police Department and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. 

Portions of the DA’s report are contradicted by officer statements made on body-worn cameras and photographic evidence. Some officers said they believed Shaw was holding a gun when he was shot. The gun, however, could not be located for a significant amount of time after Shaw was killed. 

District Attorney Chris Hicks determined that the shooting of Shaw, which occurred Feb. 23, 2022, was justified. However, much of what was revealed in bodycam footage and interviews with officers was left out of the DA’s released report. 

Arrest attempt

The effort to find Shaw began Jan. 13, 2022 when detectives posed online as a woman named Jessica and created a fake relationship with Shaw through social media and texting. 

“Jessica” asked Shaw to meet up, which eventually led to the planned apprehension of Shaw in an apartment complex parking lot. According to the report, when Shaw walked to the driver’s side door of the vehicle he believed to contain “Jessica,” he saw uniformed officers and ran through the apartment complex parking lot, as seen on video from multiple bodycams released in the initial incident report. 

A police dog was released, which took Shaw to the ground. He began to scream and jumped back up, running from the dog. An officer can be heard laughing in the bodycam footage. A few seconds later, another officer begins to yell, “drop it, drop it” as Shaw appeared to try and pry the dog from his right thigh. 

Detective Brandon Sheffield of the Sparks Police Department, in his statement for the investigation, said he saw Shaw reach both of his hands into his pants’ front waistband. When Shaw was bit by the dog, Sheffield claimed he observed a gun in Shaw’s hand. Sheffield drew his weapon and told Shaw to drop what he said he believed was the firearm. 

Sheffield said Shaw stood up again and rounded a parked car. According to the DA’s report, Shaw turned and faced Sheffield and “looked right at Detective Sheffield and then began to raise his arm with the gun still in his hand.” 

Sheffield said he ordered Shaw to drop the gun multiple times. He said he believed Shaw was going to shoot him, so he fired a round which caused Shaw to fall backward and land on the ground. 

In the investigation report, Sergeant Bare said he “observe(d) the suspect’s arm raised and (saw) what he perceives to be the top part of a handgun slide possibly in the suspect’s left hand.” 

The report states that “a search of the crime scene would ultimately discover the firearm in Shaw’s possession, which was seen by Detectives Sheffield and Carranza and Sergeant Bare.” 

Glaring inconsistencies 

There are multiple inconsistencies with the stories told by detectives and what occurred on their bodycam footage. The DA’s office refused to comment on most of them.

Bodycam footage was recovered from multiple officers involved in the incident, which were then uploaded to YouTube. What was left out from all of the stories is the fact that, according to bodycam footage, officers could not locate the gun that led Sheffield to shoot and kill Shaw. 

In the footage, multiple officers said they believed Shaw had thrown the weapon near the sidewalk of the apartment complex where he was standing when he was first engaged by the police dog—a distance of about 50 feet from where he was shot, according to video analysis. 

In officer interviews following the incident and released as part of the DA’s investigation, none of the officers noted they had believed the gun had been thrown. But in the video, at 11:58 p.m. just after Shaw is shot and on the ground, an officer asks, “Where is it?” referring to the gun. About 20 seconds later, another officer asks again, “Where is the gun?” 

A second officer responds “I saw something,” and the first officer says, “He threw it.” 

Officers begin searching the front of the vehicle where Shaw was first engaged by the dog. As Shaw is being handcuffed and then given medical aid, several officers shine their flashlights around Shaw’s body, including the snowbank where the gun was later marked as having been located. 

In multiple bodycam videos, however, there is no gun seen in the snow, both before and during medical aid. Two photos of the crime scene where the gun was located have been released. Those photos also reveal inconsistencies.

In the first photo, showing the entire scene, the yellow number 10 evidence marker appears completely unburied from snow. In between the gun and a blue PPE glove, there is an unknown item, which is potentially maroon in color. There appears to be only a small amount of snow on the item marked as the gun. 

In the second photo, a close-up of the gun, the gun appears to be further buried beneath the snow, and the number 10 marker has snow covering almost half of the number 10. The unidentified object between the gun and the glove is nowhere to be found. 

There is also no blood shown in either photo anywhere near the snowbank. The only blood that can be seen is in the first photo on the pavement where Shaw ultimately died. According to the DA’s report, the gun could not be found initially because during medical aid Shaw’s clothing was removed from his body and covered the gun. 

In the bodycam videos, Shaw’s clothing is never removed from his body. A knife is used to cut his shirt open so officers had access to the gunshot wound and his chest for initial medical treatment, but it was not removed from his body in the videos. Later though, according to the DA’s office, Shaw’s clothing was cut from his body by paramedics, long after the hunt for the gun had already begun. 

In addition, Shaw’s clothing was, according to bodycam footage and the investigation report, saturated with blood. At one point in the footage, an officer touches Shaw’s shirt with a gloved hand before reaching for a chest seal packet. The packet becomes covered in blood from the transfer of the glove. 

The gun in the crime scene photographs indicates it was located on a snowbank. No blood is near the gun in the snow. When asked how the gun could have been located in a snowbank beneath bloody clothing with no blood in the snow, a spokesperson for the DA’s office said: “Not all the clothing was bloody.” She did not elaborate on the article of clothing, or why there was no documentation of the clothing near the gun in the crime scene photographs. 

The DA’s office spokesperson further said answers could be found in the full investigative report, but declined to provide it, indicating the report should be requested through RPD. However, when This Is Reno received the investigative report, the report even noted that the clothes allegedly covering the gun were bloodied. 

“The handgun appeared to have been stepped on which cause (sic) it to be buried deep within the snow mound and at some point the discarded bloody clothing had been thrown on top of the area where it was located,” the report notes. “This is why we did not immediately notice or observe the handgun…”

Each article of clothing was also held up and photographed as part of the investigation report, each of which can clearly be seen to have “saturated blood staining on them,” which was also noted in the report. The crime scene photographer also noted that they “did not locate any new evidence,” but that they did assist in marking and photographing the scene. 

In the investigative report, there are dozens of photos taken throughout the scene. However, only three photos were taken with the gun obviously visible. The number 10 marker was used to mark Shaw’s property: a phone, a container and a dollar bill. In the photos showing the gun, however, the number 10 marker is later used to mark the gun, which cannot be seen in the photos with the personal effects. 

There is also no clothing near the number 10 marker in any of the photos. Further away in the parking lot, a number 11 marker is used to mark articles of clothing that were cut from Shaw after bodycam footage ended. 

Officer statements differ

Statements were taken from eight officers involved in the incident. They each describe the chase, where they were and what they were doing at the time Shaw was shot. Of the eight officers, only two besides Sheffield, who fired the shot, said they saw Shaw with a gun in his hand. The other five officers gave statements indicating they were at a different vantage point, were focused on the dog or were still giving chase and never saw the weapon. 

Of those five officers, some indicated they heard a metallic clink, something hitting the ground or something skipping across the asphalt. Stories differ from whether the sound was heard before or after Sheffield shot Shaw. 

What the statements in the DA’s report do not include, however, is the lengthy period of time officers searched for the gun. In the videos, several officers indicated they believed Shaw had thrown the gun from approximately 50 feet back toward the sidewalk of the apartment building. 

The DA’s office refused to answer how long it took officers to locate the gun after Shaw was killed. This information was also not included in the investigation report. Words like “eventually” and “later” are the only indications of time referring to locating the gun. 

When asked about inconsistencies between the statements given and the footage from the various bodycams, the DA’s office issued the following statement: 

“The District Attorney is tasked with reviewing OIS incidents to determine whether the shooting was justified under Nevada law. In the OIS case involving Jacori Shaw, the evaluation included reviewing hundreds of pages of investigative reports, FIS forensic reports, photographs, hours of [body worn camera] and recorded interviews. The District Attorney’s Office’s 38-page public report is a relevant summary of the entire investigation and an analysis of the facts applied to the applicable legal authorities.   

“The purpose of our review and public reporting is to determine whether there is a legal justification for an officer involved shooting based on the full investigation done by the law enforcement agency and to inform the community of our findings.” 

The only officer on scene who verbally indicated on video they believed the gun was located near Shaw’s body was Sheffield. After searching around Shaw’s body while initial medical aid was being given, officers then moved back toward the apartment complex, according to bodycam footage. They said on video they believed Shaw had thrown the weapon somewhere within that area. A perimeter was placed so they could search the area more thoroughly. 

“I heard something go skipping across the ground near the front of that building,” one officer can be heard saying in the bodycam footage, pointing toward the apartment complex.  

In an interview with detectives after the fact, Officer Tom Radley with the Sparks Police Department, who was the K-9 handler on scene, told detectives that after the shot was fired, he came forward and saw Shaw land on his back and that he was not armed. Radley said, because Shaw was not armed, he holstered his weapon and began to remove the dog from Shaw’s leg. 

“I could see him starting to go to the ground, and I could see that he didn’t have anything in his hands so I reholstered my gun,” Radley said. He also told detectives that when he heard something hit the ground, it was prior to the gunshot, and he also asked detectives if a gun was ever found, indicating the gun was not found while Radley was still on scene. 

In the footage, officers continue to point or gesture toward the complex and carport where Shaw was first attacked by the dog—prior to being shot—as they search for the gun. However, after a thorough search of the snow-covered grassy area between the sidewalk and building, the gun is not located. 

There is no bodycam footage of the gun being located, nor is there any information contained in the investigation report about who located the gun or when. There were no statements from the DA’s report indicating any officer believed Shaw had thrown the weapon, despite what is shown in police bodycam videos. Several officers also appear to thoroughly search the area close to Shaw’s body for the gun.

The investigative report even notes that officers searched beneath Shaw’s body in an attempt to locate the gun, all of which was done prior to Shaw’s clothing being removed from his body. The DA’s office could not provide any information on when the gun was recovered or when the crime scene photographs were taken, and directed This Is Reno to speak further with RPD. 

RPD did not respond to multiple requests to discuss this case, explain what was in RPD’s investigative report and explain why the bodycam footage contradicts the reports.

The DA’s office has ruled Shaw’s death as justified, and the case is now closed. Anna Marie Scott’s murder remains unsolved, and law enforcement has never released any information about the investigation despite multiple requests.

Correction: Shaw was thought to have thrown the gun when he was 50 feet from where he was eventually shot. This story has been updated to clarify that detail.