After a jury spent two days deliberating the case of a former Fairfax County, Virginia, police officer, who shot and killed a suspected shoplifter outside Tysons Corner Center last year, a split verdict came down Friday.
The jury found former Sgt. Wesley Shifflett, 36, not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but guilty of reckless handling of a firearm. He faces up to five years in prison for the felony reckless discharge charge. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 28, 2025, two years after the death of Timothy McCree Johnson.
Shifflett testified in court that he had fatally shot 37-year-old Johnson, of D.C., on Feb. 22, 2023, in an act of self-defense, after Johnson had led police on a short foot chase outside the Tysons Corner Center mall.
What happened at Tysons Corner Center
Police were called to the Nordstrom department store in the southern area of the mall around 6:30 p.m. for reports of stolen designer goods.
According to a police account of the shooting detailed in a news release, an officer saw Johnson exit the store and set off an anti-theft alarm. Police chased Johnson through a parking garage and into the woods, where officers said he disobeyed orders to get on the ground.
Johnson was shot after running through the parking garage and outside the mall, and died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Surveillance video footage and body camera footage showed Johnson taking a pair of sunglasses from Nordstrom, then exiting the store toward the parking garage. Plainclothes officers could be seen following Johnson out of the store and near Route 7, yelling commands to get on the ground and stop reaching for his pants.
Soon after, Johnson can be heard saying: “I’m not reaching for nothing. I don’t have nothing.”
When he did not comply and ran further into a wooded area off the site of the mall, officers opened fire, striking him once in the chest.
The Fairfax County Police Department fired Shifflett the following month for what Chief Kevin Davis called “a failure to live up to the expectations of our agency, in particular use of force policies.”
Shifflett was indicted in October of last year on charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm.
“I know that an indictment — nothing — is ever going to bring him at the back, but my hope is that they feel seen, they feel heard, and that this is yet another step on their journey toward healing,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said at the time, after meeting with Johnson’s family.
After Shifflett’s first court appearance, Melissa Johnson, the mother of Timothy McCree Johnson, said, “We wait for the facts to present themselves, and for victory, for Timothy.”
Caleb Kershner, Shifflett’s attorney, said his client feared for his life in the moments before the shooting. As Shifflett chased Johnson into the woods, Kershner said, Johnson tripped over some brush and crouched onto his knees, facing Shifflett. Kershner said Shifflett saw Johnson reaching into his waistband and believed he had a weapon. After the shooting, police searched for a weapon but found nothing.
“Unfortunately, Sgt. Shifflett doesn’t have clairvoyance, nor does he have X-ray vision,” Kershner said, adding: “His training told him to do exactly as he did.”
After closing arguments were made on Wednesday, Kershner said that he expects to seek a mistrial with prejudice, meaning that the case would be tossed out and prosecutors would be barred from seeking a new trial.
On Thursday, though, defense lawyers — apparently pleased with how the case is shaping up — made no request for a mistrial. Judge Randy Bellows simply instructed jurors to ignore a portion of prosecutors’ argument in which the government mistakenly played a snippet of the body-worn camera video taken from Shifflett, that shows a few minutes after the shooting that had never been introduced at trial.
Johnson’s mother: ‘Let’s not pick apart what has happened today’
Mother Melissa Johnson said her heart was “fine” when asked about the verdict on Friday.
“Let’s not pick apart what has happened today,” Melissa Johnson said. “Let’s accept that the jury did the best that they could with what they had to work with, and the same as the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office.”
Adding that a lot more work needs to get done, Melissa Johnson called for a format foot pursuit policy in Fairfax County.
“Fairfax County has gone out to two different audits, and they have received those reports, and they still have yet to enact a foot pursuit policy and so go fact check that,” she said.
WTOP’s Kate Ryan, who reported outside the Fairfax County courthouse on Friday, said Descano had argued that Shifflett had other options to subdue Johnson, and that the shooting wasn’t necessary.
“Real justice would be if Timothy was alive, that’s what justice would be,” Descano said. “What (the criminal justice system) can do is hold people accountable when they break the law, and that’s exactly what happened today.”
Standing by his side, Melissa Johnson added, “If the mother of the deceased can say that she is satisfied with it, you ought to be as well.”
WTOP Staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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