Former Warren police officer sentenced to probation over removal of car

Staff report

WARREN

Reuben Shaw, a longtime Warren police officer, told a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge Monday he used poor judgment the day he had a car towed from a vacant house to a garage he controls.

Judge Peter Kontos sentenced Shaw to two years’ probation and a suspended six-month jail sentence. Shaw pleaded guilty earlier to misdemeanor charges of theft, dereliction of duty, falsification and criminal trespassing.

As part of his plea agreement, Shaw agreed to resign from the Warren Police Department, dismiss a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint and give up his commission to serve as an Ohio police officer.

Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor, said giving up his commission means he cannot serve as a police officer anywhere.

Warren Police Chief Eric Merkel fired Shaw, 49, of Howland, in May after an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and a Warren Police Department Internal Affairs officer.

The internal affairs investigation indicated that Shaw, a 24-year veteran patrolman, had a 1969 Chevrolet Nova towed from a locked garage at a home on Kenwood Drive Southeast in June 2013 to a garage on Palmyra Road.

Internal affairs said Shaw was at the Kenwood address to investigate a trespassing call.

He returned later in the day with another person who was not a police officer and got inside the detached garage. That investigation also noted that Shaw told other officers he wanted the car to restore it.

At Shaw’s first hearing in common pleas court, about a dozen men, including several pastors, questioned the fairness of Shaw’s firing and criminal charges, saying other Warren police officers have committed crimes but were never charged.