The Fairfax County Police Department has fired one of its own. The ex-cop is now the subject of a criminal investigation after he fatally shot a man believed to be a shoplifter last month.
Chief Kevin Davis said he terminated Sgt. Wesley Shifflett from the FCPD on Thursday, March 23, according to CNN.
A preliminary review of the police-involved killing of Timothy Johnson shows the ranking officer and Police Officer First Class James Sadler both “discharged their firearms,” a collective three times when seeking to detain the man suspected of stealing sunglasses on Feb. 22.
A press release posted after the shooting by the FCPD detailed what happened that day.
“An officer observed the man exiting the store near a parking garage. As he exited the store, an anti-theft alarm was activated as he fled,” it read.
Shifflett was in uniform, but Sadler was working undercover in plain clothes when they started chasing Johnson on foot into a nearby wooded area.
Officer bodycam footage shows a chase and one officer telling Johnson to “Get on the ground” and another saying, “stop reaching.”
The video shows the moments up until shots are fired, and Johnson is shot in the chest.
The chief said the fatal shot was fired by the seven-year department veteran, Shifflett, and that Johnson was indeed unarmed. He had no weapon; only two pairs of sunglasses were discovered at the scene of the crime.
After viewing the footage with the family, Carl Crews, the Johnson family’s attorney, says the way he was killed could be considered an execution.
“The best way to describe the video is to say first what was not on it. What it doesn’t show: danger. It doesn’t show the officers faced any danger — imminent or otherwise,” Crews said.
The department declared this is not the way it runs.
“The officer’s actions do not meet the expectations of our police…
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