What started as a neighborhood argument over a parked car has ended with a year of probation for off-duty Detroit police officer Shane Mykel Shaw. On Monday, a judge sentenced Shaw after he pleaded guilty to entering a neighbor’s home without permission and assaulting a family member during a Lincoln Park parking dispute. The case grew out of a late-September run-in and wrapped up with a plea deal that cleared more serious charges in exchange for the lesser counts.
Confrontation Over Parking
According to ClickOnDetroit, Shaw walked up to a house on the 1700 block of Gregory Avenue on Sept. 27 while he was out to buy beer and told the residents to move a car he said was blocking the sidewalk. Inside were three men and a 59-year-old woman, who later told police they had never seen him before. One family member reported smelling alcohol on Shaw and asked him to leave.
Instead, Shaw allegedly insisted they had to do what he said because “he is a cop,” according to the outlet. The situation escalated when he went into the house without permission and got into a fight with one of the men inside, turning a routine driveway headache into a criminal case.
Legal Fallout
Michigan law treats going into a home while someone is there as no small matter. Under the state’s home-invasion statute, first-degree home invasion can carry up to 20 years in prison in some situations, especially when another person is lawfully present or a weapon is involved, per the Michigan Legislature. Those are the kinds of penalties that often hang in the background when prosecutors charge breaking and entering or home invasion.
Plea and Sentence
ClickOnDetroit reports that in January, Shaw admitted to entering without the owner’s permission and to assault and battery. In return, prosecutors dropped more serious home-invasion and resisting-arrest counts as part of a plea agreement. On Monday, the judge handed down a one-year probation term.
Court records cited by the outlet show Shaw had previously been released on bail and went through arraignment in the 25th District Court. The Detroit Police Department suspended him after the incident and opened an internal investigation, a separate process that runs alongside the criminal case.
Regional Context
The outcome for Shaw lands in a pattern of recent cases in which officers or former officers have ended up with probation on violent or weapons-related charges after plea deals. In February, a former Detroit officer who pulled a gun on the mother of his children received a two-year probationary sentence after pleading guilty, according to FOX2 Detroit…