FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A former northern Virginia police officer is going on trial Tuesday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man suspected of shoplifting a pair of sunglasses.
Wesley Shifflett is charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a weapon in the killing of 37-year-old Timothy McCree Johnson near a busy shopping mall on Feb. 22, 2023. Shifflett pleaded not guilty.
Shifflett and another Fairfax County police officer chased Johnson on foot after receiving a report from security guards that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from a Nordstrom department store in Tysons Corner Center.
Police body camera footage shows the nighttime chase and shooting. Shifflett can be heard ordering Johnson to stay on the ground and later to “stop reaching.” Both officers open fire, but Shifflett fired the fatal shot.
Later, Shifflett tells another officer that he saw the suspect reaching for a weapon in his waistband. Police searched for a weapon but found nothing.
The Fairfax County Police Department fired Shifflett the following month for what Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis called “a failure to live up to the expectations of our agency, in particular use of force policies.”