By Olivia Lloyd
Merced Sun-Star (Merced, Calif.)
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — An officer was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in Virginia after he was accused of killing an unarmed man who police said shoplifted sunglasses.
The officer was, however, convicted on a charge of reckless discharge of a firearm, the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office said in an Oct. 4 news release.
On Feb. 22, 2023, 36-year-old Wesley Shifflett was working as a sergeant for the Fairfax County Police Department when he responded to a theft of designer sunglasses at a Nordstrom, according to a news release from the police department.
Shifflett and another officer chased 37-year-old Timothy McCree Johnson through a parking garage, a parking lot and into a wooded area near the mall, where both officers then shot him, with one yelling “stop reaching,” according to accounts from police and body-worn camera footage.
Johnson was hit once by gunfire and died, according to police.
Prosecutors said he was unarmed. When testifying during the trial, Shifflett said he didn’t know that when he fired his weapon, NBC4 Washington reported.
“I did not have the luxury to wait to see a gun,” Shifflett testified, according to NBC4 Washington. “We are trained that hands are going to harm you and hands are what are going to kill you.”
McClatchy News reached out to Shifflett’s attorney for comment Oct. 7 but did not immediately receive a response.
“Today’s verdict has provided Mr. Shifflett a second chance, a benefit that my son, Timothy McCree Johnson, was not afforded,” his mother said in a news conference broadcast by WJLA.
She still celebrated the conviction on the one charge.
“I want to acknowledge that most Black and brown families who find themselves in the same situation do not get this far,” Johnson’s mother said in a video shared by WJLA. “And so I am grateful.”
Shifflett, a seven-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, lost his job, with Chief Kevin Davis saying his actions didn’t fit with the department’s expectations and use of force policy.
“Unfortunately, we have a two-tiered system of justice where some people’s lives and liberty are worth more than others’,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said after the verdict. “And certainly, there are still institutional barriers to holding law enforcement officers accountable when they break the law.”
The charge carries up to five years in prison. Shifflett is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 28, prosecutors said.
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