Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has commuted the sentence of a White Fairfax County cop convicted in the 2023 shooting death of an unarmed Black shoplifting suspect.
“I have today used the executive clemency authority granted to me by the Constitution of Virginia and commuted the sentence imposed on Sgt. Wesley Shifflett, who was convicted of recklessly discharging a firearm by the Fairfax County Circuit Court,” Youngkin was quoted in a statement released by the governor’s office Sunday night.
Shifflett was convicted last fall on a reckless firing of a firearm charge in the 2023 death of Timothy Johnson, 37.
On Friday, Shifflett, who was fired from his job as a sergeant with the Fairfax County Police Department after the shooting, was given a three-year prison sentence on the conviction, which Youngkin said in his statement he is “convinced” was “unjust.”
“In this case, the court rejected the Senior Probation and Parole Officer’s recommendation of no incarceration nor supervised probation and instead imposed a sentence of five years’ incarceration with two suspended and an additional five years of probation. Sgt. Shifflett has no prior criminal record, and was, by all accounts, an exemplary police officer. It is in the interest of justice that he be released immediately,” Youngkin said.
This “exemplary police officer” was just excoriated in court two days ago by a judge who said that “Shifflett’s conduct at the time he shot Timothy Johnson showed a reckless disregard for human life,” so, Youngkin’s notion of the “interest of justice” should be taken with a grain of salt.
According to court documents, Shifflett was one of two officers who confronted Johnson as the suspect left the Tysons Corner Center mall on Feb. 22, 2023.
Police had reportedly received an alert that Johnson had stolen two pairs of sunglasses from Nordstrom.
The officers chased Johnson into a wooded area and Shifflett opened fire, hitting him in the chest.
Johnson was taken to a hospital, where he died.
Shifflett testified he shot Johnson in self-defense because he claimed that he saw Johnson, who was unarmed, reaching into his waistband.
“Was shoplifting right? Absolutely not. But we have laws in place to address shoplifting,” Johnson’s mother, Melissa Johnson, said on Friday after the sentencing hearing. “Should my son have been murdered because he shoplifted from the mall?”
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Chris Graham
