‘He’s dead from shoplifting’: Mother questions why police shot her son
Fairfax County police say officers chased the man, who was thought to have stolen sunglasses at Tysons Corner Center, and shot at him in a wooded area nearby
By Jasmine Hilton and Olivia Diaz
Updated February 23, 2023 at 7:54 p.m. EST|Published February 23, 2023 at 7:39 p.m. EST
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post)
The mother of a man shot and killed by Fairfax County police near Tysons Corner Center on Wednesday questioned why officers chased and fired their guns at her son, who she believed was unarmed and suspected only of stealing sunglasses.
“He’s dead from shoplifting,” said Melissa Johnson, whose son, Timothy McCree Johnson, was killed in the encounter with police. “Not robbing someone with a gun, not burglarizing something with a gun. An unarmed shoplifter is dead now.”
Police have released few details of the encounter, though they have confirmed it began when a Fairfax County uniformed officer and a plainclothes officer attempted to stop Timothy Johnson, who was suspected of stealing designer sunglasses at the mall.
The 37-year-old Black man ran away, and officers chased him on foot about a quarter-mile to a densely wooded area, told him to get on the ground and then fired, authorities said. Timothy Johnson was shot in the chest one time and taken to a hospital, where he died, police said.
Police did not say what threat, if any, Johnson was posing to the officers when they fired their guns — though they promised they would release body-camera footage of the incident. Neither officer was injured, police said.
Melissa Johnson, 56, said her family wants “the truth to come out.” She said two Fairfax police detectives arrived at her home Thursday around 1 a.m. to notify her of the shooting, but did not share much additional information.
“He’s not how the police try to portray him, as this evil criminal with this long history,” Melissa Johnson said. “I believe that he ran and I believe that he was unarmed and I believe they shot and killed him. He’s a father. He’s a brother. He’s my son.”
Timothy Johnson had two children, a son and a daughter, whom he recently spent time with over the weekend, his mother said. He was a “loving person,” Melissa Johnson said. Her son was an artist, she said, who loved drawing and creating designs and hoped to one day start his own clothing line.
“He really, really was trying to get on the right track and get his life together,” Melissa Johnson said, noting that her son struggled with substance abuse issues throughout his life. She said he had just returned home after being in custody from a parole violation and was going to go to barber school.
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a Wednesday night news conference that it was unclear whether Johnson was armed and that investigators would spend the Thursday morning examining the scene and searching for additional evidence, such as a weapon.
Police said Thursday that they had not recovered a weapon; Melissa Johnson said she believed her son was unarmed.
“He never had a gun, a knife. He probably didn’t even have a cellphone,” she said. “And he was running away. How did he get shot in the woods running away from 20 to 30 yards out?”
Diane Burkley Alejandro, lead advocate of ACLU People Power Fairfax, questioned why police released so few details in the hours after the shooting.
“What Chief Davis doesn’t say is significant,” Burkley Alejandro said in a Thursday statement. “He doesn’t say the officers even alleged the suspect fired or threatened to shoot. They are looking for a weapon, but if the suspect dropped a weapon, that doesn’t justify the force.”
In past incidents, police have offered more detailed accounts — including in a shooting’s immediate aftermath. When officers shot and wounded a man in October after a chase, they described that night how he had fired at police after a pursuit.
Police did not identify the officers who opened fire at Timothy Johnson, but they said one was a seven-year veteran on the force while the other had served eight years. They were placed on restricted-duty status while officers investigate the case, police said, adding that it was the department’s standard procedure in police shootings. The news release said the department planned to release the officers’ identities in the next 10 days.
The uniformed officer involved in the shooting also wore a body camera, which recorded footage of the incident, Davis said. The department’s policy is to release body-camera footage within 30 days of a police shooting, which the chief said he expected the department to do. Timothy Walker, 60, Timothy Johnson’s father, said the family wants to see the video sooner.
“We know the scrutiny that follows these officer-involved shootings — not just here, but around the country,” Davis said Wednesday. “It’s something we take very, very seriously.”
Davis said police would work collaboratively with the office of Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano.
“My job is to keep the residents of Fairfax County safe, and that includes holding officers accountable for wrongdoing if and when it occurs,” Descano (D) said in a statement. “While we often work closely with law enforcement, the Commonwealth’s Attorney is an independent agency, and public trust relies on me being able to assess the situation fairly and neutrally.”
In 2021, the University of Texas at San Antonio published a study about the use of force in Fairfax County, analyzing 1,360 use-of-force cases over a three-year period between 2016 and 2018. The report included a slew of recommendations, including the department’s adoption of a foot pursuit policy. The department’s community advisory committee also recommended to the Board of Supervisors last March that the department adopt such policy.
Fairfax Police Lt. Jim Curry, a department spokesman, said Thursday that the department did not have a foot pursuit policy.
Melissa Johnson said the family has an attorney, who is working with the NAACP. Police shootings that are polarizing the nation are “becoming too familiar and too frequent,” she said.
“I really hope that our nation does not settle into a pattern of a police incident and then this is the pattern that we take, that everything gets so sensationalized and nothing changes,” she said, adding later, “This was my son.”
condolences to the family...very sad...blackman percentage of getting taken into custody w/o deadly force that's reported is sad...crazy 
