An ex-Virginia police officer will not go to trial for shooting an unarmed shoplifter at a shopping mall.
The prosecution was not allowed to review what authorities presented before the grand jury, leaving some to speculate the police created a scenario to support that the officer followed use-of-force protocols when he fatally shot Timothy McCree Johnson.
The grand jury said there was simply not enough probable cause to indict the former officer.
Fairfax County Commonwealth attorney Steve Descano called Johnson’s family and told them he expected to go to trial and prosecute Wesley Shifflett, a former Fairfax County, Virginia, police officer, on manslaughter charges.
However, he was wrong. The grand jury failed to indict Shifflett for shooting Johnson outside Tysons Corner Center, 16 miles west of Washington, D.C., on Feb. 22. The 37-year-old was suspected of stealing a pair of sunglasses.
Related: ‘He’s Dead from Shoplifting’: Mother of Black Man Killed by Police After Allegedly Stealing Sunglasses Wants to Know Why Cops Shot Her Unarmed Son
A preliminary review of the police-involved killing showed that Shifflett, a former sergeant, and police officer first class James Sadler both “discharged their firearms” collectively three times.
Officer bodycam footage shows a chase and one officer telling Johnson to “Get on the ground” and another saying “Stop reaching.”
Fairfax County police chief Kevin Davis said the fatal shot was fired by Shifflett and that Johnson was indeed unarmed. Authorities only recovered two pairs of sunglasses, but no handgun, at the scene of the crime.
At the time, Davis called it “a failure to live up to the expectations of our agency, in particular use of force policies.”
According to The Washington Post, Davis was one of the first to get the news that Shifflett would not be indicted and shared it with the department via email.
While he did not go into details about the…
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