To insure transparency in the Dustin Griffin case, the prosecutor needs to step aside

It’s pretty obvious, and has been for a while, that Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Martin needs to recuse himself in the matter of the Dec. 17, 2025, officer-involved shooting of Dustin Griffin.

Any pretense that Martin can be impartial in connection to the shooting death of Griffin was erased when he hit send on an emotionally tinged statement forcefully exonerating the three deputies involved in the shooting back on Jan. 7, which he not only issued as Virginia State Police was still in the midst of its investigation – but here we are, five months-plus later, and the State Police and the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office still consider the case active.

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ICYMI: Dustin Griffin case

• Augusta County: Man killed in officer-involved shooting; one deputy airlifted
• Augusta County: Medical examiner confirms ID of man shot, killed by deputy
• The story of the man killed in Augusta County officer-involved shooting
• What’s the status of the investigation into the Dustin Griffin shooting death?
• Local media hypes jewelry store heist, ignores officer-involved shooting
• Augusta County: Prosecutor exonerates deputies in Dec. 17 shooting; still waiting for details
• Augusta County: What happened on Dec. 17 on Parkersburg Turnpike?
• Family of Dustin Griffin: ‘We want answers,’ not ‘premature conclusions’
• Augusta County sheriff releases bodycam video in Dec. 17 shooting: Case closed?
• Dustin Griffin case: Video evidence lacking on the shot to the back of the head
• Virginia State Police not done investigating Dustin Griffin shooting
• Augusta County: Family of man killed in officer-involved shooting still looking for answers

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At the least here, Martin is guilty of a rush to judgment in the case; at worst, he’s running cover for the Sheriff’s Office.

So much remains at question with what happened as deputies tried to serve an arrest warrant on Griffin, 42, at a residence in the 800 block of Parkersburg Turnpike, about two miles west of the Staunton city limits.

The central question: why, after Griffin had shot one of the deputies during a struggle, and a second deputy had fired a volley of five shots that struck Griffin in the torso, turning him from his back to his stomach, dislodging the weapon, did a third deputy, four full seconds after the five-shot volley, fire a kill shot to the back of Griffin’s head?

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Was he still a danger to the deputies at that point – on his stomach, no gun in his hand, struck five times by gunshots?

The answer to this question is what should determine whether the final shot was justified, or if it was murder.

Tim Martin, in deciding early on that he will not prosecute the case, has proven himself incapable if the State Police investigation, whenever it is complete, comes back with a finding that that final shot crossed the line from justified to criminal.

And frankly, if the State Police investigation were to somehow come back with a finding that the scene described above isn’t criminal, if I’m the Commonwealth’s attorney, I’m still double-checking, because we all saw what we saw.

I made an observation, months ago, that it was odd to me that Martin, in the wake of his emotional defense of the deputies from his Jan. 7 statement, wouldn’t just himself and request that the local courts appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the case on behalf of the Commonwealth.

It’s time now to make that in the form of a formal request.

Tim Martin needs to recuse himself from this case.

Because he couldn’t separate his personal feelings from doing the job that he was elected to do.

Which, by the way, isn’t to serve as the defense attorney for sheriff’s deputies.

We elect a Commonwealth’s attorney to represent the people, not officers of the government.

Another issue for another day here, but, this is what we get, folks, when we let the good old boys in the good old boy network just do whatever they want to do.