A former Georgia cop who turned himself in earlier this year to face charges for the shooting death of an unarmed Black man has pleaded guilty.
Grant Shaw pleaded guilty on Dec. 7 to involuntary manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old Emmanuel Millard.
In a Cobb County courtroom, Shaw agreed to a non-negotiated plea deal to serve 10 years. Prosecutors requested that sentence, with the first two years to be served in confinement, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The judge “suspended” the 10-year sentence, commuting it to probation, and ordered Shaw to serve 500 hours of community service.
Shaw was accused of killing Millard last October after a traffic stop and a police chase in suburban Atlanta.
The traffic stop started in Cherokee County when police attempted to pull Milliard over for several traffic offenses. Millard fled, leading to a chase that ended in Cobb County when his car crashed after officers executed a Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT) maneuver to stop him.
According to the indictment, as officers attempted to remove an unarmed Millard from the car to arrest him, Shaw shot him in the head.
Millard was taken to a local hospital in critical condition, where he died two days later.
The indictment states that “while in the commission of reckless conduct, an unlawful act,” Shaw caused the man’s death “without any intention to do so, by pointing a Glock model 34, 9 mm firearm at Emmanuel Malik Millard while his finger was on the trigger, thereby endangering” his “bodily safety.”
The attorney for Millard’s family, Andrew Lampros, viewed the unreleased bodycam footage of the incident.
“[Millard] showed him his hands, he was fully compliant and told him to get out of the car, and as he went to get out of the car, he shot and killed him,” Lampros said. “Traffic stops are not supposed to end in the death of the person who was stopped, especially when they present no danger to themselves or anyone else.”
Shaw, who began working for the Woodstock Police Department in 2021, resigned from his position a week after the shooting. Following a state investigation, a grand jury indicted Shaw on involuntary manslaughter in April and he turned himself in shortly after the indictment was filed.
After the indictment was announced, a couple told WSB-TV about a different traffic stop incident involving Shaw in December 2022. They said they were rushing their sick pet to an animal hospital when Shaw pulled them over and held them at gunpoint. Police charged the driver with DUI, but he said he wasn’t drunk.
After that incident, the couple said they believed Shaw was “going to shoot somebody one day.”
