FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A jury on Friday acquitted a former police officer in Virginia of involuntary manslaughter after he fatally shot a shoplifting suspect outside a busy shopping mall.
But the jury did convict the former police sergeant, Wesley Shifflett, of reckless handling of a firearm in connection with the shooting.
Prosecutors argued that Shifflett, then a sergeant with Fairfax County Police, acted recklessly when he shot and killed an unarmed man, Timothy McCree Johnson, after a short foot chase outside Tysons Corner Center in February 2023.
Shifflett testified in his own defense and claimed self defense. He said he saw Johnson, 37, reaching into his waistband after falling down during the chase, and he was worried that Johnson might be drawing a weapon.
“At that moment, that was the most scared I had been in my life because I thought at any moment he would pull out a gun and just start shooting me,” he said during his testimony at trial, later adding: “I didn’t have the luxury to wait and see a gun because I knew in an instant I could be dead.”
During cross-examination and in closing arguments, prosecutors criticized Shifflett’s decisions leading up to the shooting, including his choice to chase Johnson into the wooded area at night before waiting for backup or turning on a flashlight.
Prosecutor Jenna Sands argued that Shifflett's decision to fire two shots, on the run, in a crowded area, constituted reckless discharge of a firearm.
Shifflett said he acknowledged that a wooded area in the dark escalates the danger involved in a foot chase. But he said, “We are placed in a lot of dangerous situations. There’s a responsibility to uphold law and order.”
The dimly lit bodycam video of the video, which was shown to jurors, is inconclusive as to whether Johnson reached into his waistband.
It does clearly depict Shifflett yelling “get on the ground” before firing two shots at Johnson. After the shots were fired, Shifflett immediately yelled “stop reaching” and told other officers that he saw Johnson reaching in his waistband.
During cross-examination, Sands asked Shifflett about shooting Johnson before commanding that the victim “stop reaching.”
“My motor functions were operating more quickly than I could verbalize,” Shifflett said.
The video also shows Johnson's dying words, saying “I wasn't reaching for nothing. ... I'm shot and I'm bleeding.”
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis fired Shifflett shortly after the shooting for violating the department’s use-of-force policies. But when Davis publicly released the bodycam video of the shooting, he acknowledged the video's ambiguity.
“More often than not, the police body camera footage speaks for itself,” Davis said at the time. “This time, it does not.”
Prosecutors struggled at points to present their case against Shifflett. Initially, a grand jury declined to indict him. At that point, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, who won office on a campaign platform that included holding police officers accountable for misconduct, convened a special grand jury that operated under rules that gave Descano more oversight over the process.
The special grand jury returned indictments on charges including involuntary manslaughter and reckless handling of a firearm.
Descano, who convened a second grand jury to indict Shifflett after the first refused, said he hopes the conviction “gives the Johnson family some closure to know that they are not alone in seeing that Mr. Shifflett did not act in accordance with the law that evening.”
Still, Descano lamented what he said is a “criminal code provides a level of deference to police officers that is not provided to other individuals.”
The trial faced multiple delays after it began last month. The lead prosecutor suffered a severe medical issue and was replaced by another attorney, causing a delay of several days. During closing arguments, prosecutors played for the jury a snippet of Shifflett's bodycam video that had not been entered as evidence at trial, briefly raising concerns about a mistrial before defense lawyers opted against requesting one.
Shifflett will be sentenced in February on the reckless discharge of a firearm charge. The crime is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
FILE - Timothy McCree Johnson's parents Melissa Johnson, center, and Timothy Walker, left, address reporters along with attorney Carl Crews, right, outside Fairfax County Police headquarters, March 22, 2023, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat, File)
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the union stronghold of Flint, Michigan, on Friday as she battles with Donald Trump for working-class voters who could tip the scales in this year’s election.
Her appearance in the battleground state comes the day after U.S. dockworkers suspended their strike in hopes of reaching a new contract, sparing the country a damaging episode of labor unrest that could have rattled the economy.
Meanwhile, Trump is heading to Georgia to appear with Gov. Brian Kemp, the latest sign that he’s patched up his rocky relationship with the top Republican in a key battleground state.
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Here’s the latest:
For just under an hour, Trump talked with a military-heavy audience in North Carolina about issues from immigration and hurricane relief to veterans affairs and international relations.
At an event space Friday in Fayetteville, near Fort Liberty — among the world’s largest military installations — thousands of attendees sat in tiers of seats and folding chairs as Trump took several questions from people, all of whom had some connection to the military. One Vietnam veteran, who moderator Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida said had written Trump a letter after the July assassination attempt in Butler, gave the former president his Purple Heart, saying Trump deserved it.
Trump bookended his remarks by saying that he would revert the name of Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg. The Department of Defense renamed the installation last year, part of an initiative to shed the names of Confederate soldiers, motivated by the 2020 anti-racism protests over the murder of George Floyd by police.
Democrats and civil rights groups are asking election officials in the states ravaged by Hurricane Helene to give voters more time to register and vote for the upcoming presidential election. A judge in South Carolina on Friday extended that state’s deadline to Oct. 14, but prospects are uncertain in the other hard-hit states.
In North Carolina, one of the most fiercely contested presidential battlegrounds, election officials aren’t planning to extend the Oct. 11 voter registration deadline, although that could change when the Legislature meets next week to consider adjustments to state election laws. Eligible voters also are allowed to register during North Carolina’s in-person voting period that starts Oct. 17.
In Georgia, the other major presidential swing state in the storm’s path, at least 40 advocacy groups wrote Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, urging them to extend the registration deadline in the affected counties by at least a week beyond Monday’s deadline.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund sent a similar letter Friday to Florida officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd, both Republicans. As of Friday, there was no move to alter the registration deadlines in either Georgia or Florida.
A prominent Muslim American voter mobilization group that endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president say they met with her “to underscore the deep pain our communities feel over the intensifying crisis in Gaza and Lebanon.”
Emgage Action said in a statement Friday that it asked Harris to do everything possible end the war and change U.S. policy in the region. The group also expressed its disappointment in the administration’s handling of the violence, which it says “has endangered the wellbeing of our communities at home and is now widening to a broader regional war.”
The group asked Harris to relay their message to President Joe Biden and stress to him how important it is to immediately end the violence.
MADISON, Wis. — A federal judge has ordered a small town in northern Wisconsin to offer disabled people accessible voting systems.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Rusk County towns of Thornapple and Lawrence on Sept. 20 alleging that neither town had accessible voting systems for disabled people as required under federal law. Officials in both towns decided in 2023 to go to paper ballots only.
The lawsuit alleged that neither town had voting systems that disabled people could access as required under federal law for this year’s presidential primary on April 2 or for the Aug. 13 primary. Thornapple’s population is around 700 people and Lawrence is about 6,300 people.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson issued a preliminary injunction Friday that requires Thornapple officials to make sure every polling place in the Nov. 5 election has a voting system that disabled people can access. The systems must be plugged in, turned on and readily visible to voters, according to the order. The town also must post signs in every polling place alerting voters that the systems are ready for use.
The town’s attorney, Eric McLeod, didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment late Friday afternoon.
The Justice Department reached a settlement with Lawrence on Sept. 27 that calls for the town to make an accessible voting machine available at every polling place it operates in future federal elections and train staff on how to operate the equipment.
EVANS, Ga. — Former President Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp cemented their newfound alliance Friday in Georgia as they both praised citizens and first responders in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Trump and Kemp appeared in front of paper products, diapers and other relief supplies as they addressed reporters outside Augusta.
Trump, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, said Kemp is doing a “fantastic job.” The GOP nominee again repeated his false assertions that President Joe Biden’s administration has not led a routine federal disaster response.
Trump mentioned the “big election” coming up and said if he wins Georgia will be treated well as it recovers.
Kemp and Trump spent several years at odds after the governor refused to help Trump overturn Biden’s 2020 victory. But they made up recently as part of Trump’s comeback effort and concerns among Republicans that the rift would help Democratic nominee Vice President Harris win the state.
President Joe Biden said Friday that he was confident the upcoming election would be free and fair - but he’s not sure it will be peaceful.
Biden made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room to discuss the strong jobs report that he called “incredible news,” and he took some questions. He was asked about how he was feeling about the upcoming election.
“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful,” he said. “The things that Trump has said - and the the things that he said last time, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election -- were very dangerous.”
Trump still falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen.
Biden was also asked, as he left the room, whether he was going to reconsider running for president.
“I’m back in” he joked, and the reporters all laughed.
Election experts during a virtual panel held by the National Task Force on Election Crises on Friday acknowledged that western North Carolina officials are still in the early phases of assessing how hurricane damage will affect voting.
The process has been delayed with bridges and roads compromised and emergency crews still actively working to rescue stranded residents and provide people with basic supplies, said Robert Orr, a retired North Carolina Supreme Court Justice who co-leads the North Carolina Network for Fair, Safe and Secure Elections.
Paying for last-minute election changes could pose a challenge, Orr said. Most North Carolina election funding happens locally, and most county election budgets are already diminished because they had to reprint ballots to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name, he said.
Most North Carolina residents are still focused on basic survival and recovery over voting, said Anne Tindall, special counsel of the nonprofit Protect Democracy.
Four people intentionally voted twice in Michigan’s summer primary election, the state attorney general said Friday as she announced felony charges against the suburban Detroit residents as well as public employees accused of enabling it to happen.
Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges against the St. Clair Shores residents as well as three assistant clerks who are accused of enabling it to happen. Nessel called it “shocking and simply unheard of.” Nessel said four people who had already cast absentee ballots for the Aug. 6 primary showed up to vote in St. Clair Shores on the day of the election.
It’s possible to cancel an absentee ballot but not on Election Day.
The extra votes did not affect race results, she said.
Casey and Biden are allies and friends. Biden hasn’t done much campaigning since he left the 2024 race over the summer and Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket.
The president will also travel to Wisconsin where he’ll talk about efforts by his administration to replace lead pipes. That’s something Biden has continued to do — talk publicly about his administration’s successes and his record in office. He has told his team to “run through the tape.”
Elon Musk will join Donald Trump at his rally Saturday in Butler, the Pennsylvania city where the Republican presidential nominee survived an assassination attempt earlier this year.
“I will be there to support!” Musk wrote on his social platform X on Thursday in a retweet of Trump’s own promotion of the rally. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO will be among special guests in attendance, Trump’s campaign confirmed Friday.
The event will mark the first time the billionaire businessman appears publicly at a campaign event for the former president since endorsing him. Musk has supercharged his support for Trump in recent months and has become personally more invested in politics — even agreeing to lead a government efficiency commission if Trump wins reelection.
Saturday’s rally will take place at the same property where a gunman’s bullets grazed Trump’s right ear and killed his supporter, Corey Comperatore. The shooting left multiple others injured.
The Democratic presidential nominee has already been to Georgia, where she helped distribute meals and spoke with families in Augusta. More than 200 people died in the powerful storm that spread out across the Southeast, causing devastation. President Joe Biden, too, has traveled to areas hard-hit by the storm.
From Georgia, Harris said she and Biden have been paying attention “from the beginning to what we need to do to make sure the federal resources hit the ground as quickly as possible, and that includes what was necessary to make sure that we provided direct federal assistance. And that work has been happening.”
Their travel comes as Republican Donald Trump is falsely claiming the federal government wasn't doing enough to help affected people in Republican areas. Biden was angered by the suggestion, calling it a lie. He said partisan politics should not be part of this conversation.
Former President Barack Obama is planning to hit key swing states to boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for the White House, starting on Thursday in Pittsburgh.
The Harris campaign says Obama will travel around the country over the final 27 days ahead of the election. It noted that the former president and Harris have a friendship that goes back 20 years, from when they first met while he was running for Senate.
Harris was also an early supporter of Obama’s 2008 presidential bid and knocked on doors for him in Iowa ahead of its caucus that led off voting in the Democratic primary.
In his speech at the Democratic convention in August, Obama said Harris “wasn’t born into privilege. She had to work for what she’s got.”
“And she actually cares about what other people are going through,” the former president added then.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump dances at a campaign event at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in University Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives on Air Force Two at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
