2023-04-26 17:23:14
A prosecutor has asked a special grand jury to investigate the fatal police shooting of an unarmed robbery suspect outside a shopping center in northern Virginia after a previous grand jury declined to return an indictment.
Carl Crews, an attorney for Timothy McCree Johnson’s family, said he was informed Tuesday by Fairfax County District Attorney Steve Descano that a judge had approved the prosecutor’s request to form a special grand jury.
Descano confirmed Tuesday in a brief statement that it requested the special grand jury, but declined to comment further.
The use of special grand juries is unusual. In Fairfax County, the only other time Descano sought a special grand jury was in the case of another deadly police shooting: the 2017 shooting that claimed the life of Bijan Ghaisar by US Park Police officers after a chase on the highway. The charges in that case were ultimately dismissed by a federal judge.
The special grand jury panel in Johnson’s case comes after a regular grand jury earlier this month declined to indict the officer who fatally shot Johnson.
Johnson was shot to death on February 22 after a security guard said that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from a Nordstorm department store. Two officers followed Johnson into a wooded area outside the mall and fired. An investigation determined that one of the officers, Wesley Shifflett, fired the fatal shot.
Police Chief Kevin Davis fired Shifflett last month. He also posted a low-light video showing a nighttime foot chase that lasted less than two minutes. In a slow-motion version of the video, it appears two shots were fired after an officer yelled “get down” but just before yelling “stop reaching.”
After the shooting, body camera video records Shifflett telling another officer that he saw Johnson “continuously putting his hand to his waist” and that he told Johnson, “Let me see your hands.” But that command cannot be heard on the video.
Police searched for a weapon but found none.
Caleb Kershner, Shifflett’s attorney, said Tuesday he was surprised Descano brought the case to a second grand jury. He said prosecutors should respect the initial grand jury trial, which found no probable cause to bring criminal charges.
“It’s pretty clear they don’t want to uphold the law, and they’re going to do whatever they can to get a charge,” Kershner said.
The rules for a special grand jury are different than for a regular grand jury. Most importantly, in a regular grand jury, prosecutors are absent from the room when police officers present evidence and testimony to grand juries.
When the grand jury declined to indict Shifflett earlier this month, it became clear that prosecutors were concerned that the officers would cloud their testimony in a way that would weaken the case. Descano issued a statement in which he emphasized that he was not allowed to enter the room and that he had no idea of the testimony the officers gave.
An attorney for Johnson’s family pointed out how rare it is for a grand jury to throw out indictments and said he was concerned that police were trying to cover up for a fellow officer.
In a special grand jury, prosecutors are in the room asking questions of the officers who are testifying and have more control over the process.
Johnson’s mother, Melissa Johnson, said in a phone interview that she “felt like her breath was taken” when the grand jury declined to indict last week. Now that the new grand jury will hear the case, she said she feels “reinvigorated, with renewed hope in the judicial system.”
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