An officer accused of falsifying records as part of a gang framing scandal within the Los Angeles Police Department pleaded guilty Thursday to six felony charges.
Prosecutors alleged Braxton Shaw falsified dozens of interview forms that police fill out in the field, labeling as gang members 43 people who had made no such admission or had flatly denied their affiliation. Some of those people ended up in a state gang database.
The 41-year-old officer entered the plea as part of a deal with prosecutors to resolve multiple felony charges that could have led to him being sentenced to decades in prison.
Shaw was among six officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's elite Metropolitan Division charged in 2020 in the investigation into falsified data. Charges against the other five were dismissed.
Prosecutors said some of the people Shaw misidentified ended up in the state database known as CalGang. The Los Angeles Police Department and the county district attorney’s office later said body camera footage from Shaw and his associates showed the cards had been forged.
In exchange for Shaw’s no-contest plea to six felony counts of filing a false police report, a prosecutor told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter, Shaw would serve two years of probation, surrender his peace officer certification and perform 250 hours of community service. If he violates the terms of his probation, Shaw could face more than seven years in prison.
District Attorney George Gascón's office also reserved the right to object to any defense efforts at Shaw's Sept. 25 sentencing hearing to reduce the sentences to lesser offenses.
“I am pleased with the outcome of this case,” Gascón said Thursday. “Mr. Shaw’s betrayal of his oath to serve and protect the community is not only disappointing, it undermines the integrity of our police force and the trust the community places in them. Our office remains committed to promoting a legal system that operates with integrity and fairness.”
The investigation into falsified records began in 2019 after a Van Nuys woman received a letter stating that her son had been identified as a gang member. She believed her son had been misidentified and reported it to a supervisor at a nearby police station. The supervisor reviewed body camera footage and found inaccuracies by the officer. The department removed the woman's son from the gang database.
Shaw's attorney, Greg Yacoubian, had in previous hearings portrayed his client as someone who relied on information from other officers and sources to describe a person as a “self-admitted” gang member.
Field interviews with gang members were used by the department as a measure of productivity, giving officers an incentive to make arrests.
In the wake of the scandal, the police chief and the mayor announced that the LAPD would stop submitting new entries to the CalGang database. Then-Chief Michel Moore acknowledged to the Police Commission that a months-long review found glaring inconsistencies and inaccuracies in how the LAPD used the database, and the chief recommended that the department permanently suspend its participation.
A 2020 Times analysis found that field interview cards were used more in the Metro Division than elsewhere in the department. The division accounted for about 4% of the force but accounted for more than 20% of the department’s field interview cards issued over an 18-month period.
