Your Government Called It 'Mutual Combat' to Let a Cop With Two Domestic Violence Arrests Walk Free

LAPD Officer Shay Austin Van Deventer was first arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in May 2023, booked and released on $50,000 bail; he was stationed at the department's Devonshire Division at the time. Less than a year later, on March 7, 2024, he was arrested again — a second domestic violence incident involving a different victim than the first. Four days later, deputies seized three firearms from his Valencia home after he reportedly made threatening remarks toward law enforcement, and prosecutors added a charge of illegal possession of an assault weapon on top of two misdemeanor domestic violence counts. The case sat for more than a year and a half. Then, in November 2025, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office quietly dropped both charges — the weapons count on November 19, and the domestic violence count the following week. According to a transcript of the hearing, Deputy District Attorney Tatiana Chahoian explained her decision to Judge Danielle Colon O'Sullivan on the record: she'd spoken with the alleged victim, Van Deventer's ex-girlfriend, and was recharacterizing the incident using the legal term "mutual combat." No further public explanation was given for dropping the separate assault weapon charge. Van Deventer appears to remain employed by the LAPD.

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Commentary: A man with two separate domestic violence arrests involving two separate women, caught with an illegal assault weapon and threatening cops in his own driveway, got both cases erased because a prosecutor decided, after one conversation, that his second alleged victim was just as much a combatant as he was — that's not a legal judgment, that's a badge doing what badges do for each other.

Source: https://signalscv.com/2026/05/da-drops-weapons-dv-charge-against-lapd-officer/

Image guidance: For Wikimedia Commons, search "Los Angeles Police Department patrol car" for a generic department vehicle image, or "Santa Clarita courthouse" for the relevant judicial building. Avoid any personal photos of Van Deventer circulating on social media, which are not public domain.

AI disclosure: ⚠️ This content was researched and written with AI assistance and may be fully AI-generated. All facts are sourced from the linked article and corroborating sources.