Governor Virginia commits the sentence for the officer who killed an unarmed man suspected of shopping

The parents of Timothy McCree Johnson, Melissa Johnson, Center, and Timothy Walker, left reporters together with lawyer Carl Crews, right, outside the Police headquarters in Fairfax County, Wednesday, March 22, 2023, in Fairfax, Virginia, after watching the video of their son, at the death of death at the hands of the police. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat)

On March 2, the Republican governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin made a condemnation of a former police sergeant in Fairfax County, Wesley Shifflet, who faded an unarmed man suspected of shopping sunglasses in 2023.

The victim, Timothy Johnson, 37, was suspected of shopping, a nonviolent crime, from a Nordstrom store in Tysons Corner Mall in Northern Virginia. Shifflet has received a three -year -old wrist sentence for the offense of recklessly managing a firearm just two days before the sentence was eliminated.

After condemning the officer’s sentence, Youngkin declared in a statement: “I am convinced that the imprisonment of the incarceration court is unfair and violates the foundation stone of our justice system – that the persons located similarly receive proportional sentences.”

“To apply the law, this tells them that they have a governor who has their backs,” said Caleb Kershner, Shifflet’s lawyer. During Shifflett’s trial, Kershner advanced the statement that the police should be given the right to pull first and ask questions after: “A police officer is authorized – and trained – to use lethal force when he reasonably believes that he is in danger of bad evil or death. And that’s exactly what happened in this incident. ”

The prosecutor in the trial of Shifflelet, Steve Descano, denounced Youngkin’s decision, saying: “This is an insult to all the virgins who appreciate an untouched system.” The shooting was more precisely called an “execution” by Johnson’s family’s lawyer, Carl Crews, who said: “He could have been detained without a blow being fired. Several police officers were present. This could have been done. “

Shifflett and two other officers followed Johnson through a parking garage and later the forest. Both Shifflett and another officer shot themselves at Johnson, with a bullet that hit him in the torso and finally kills him. Audio of the Incident shows the terrible moments before Johnson’s execution, screams while Shiffflet aim to “get nothing. I have nothing. “

Youngkin has gained the government race in Virginia in 2021. He ran on a completely reactionary reactionary platform, opposing limited public health measures to combat Covid-19 and teaching critical races in schools. He also campaigned for banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

During his state -in -January Commonwealth State speech at the General Assembly, Youngkin asked for tax reductions and dismantling the state environmental laws. He supported Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential elections.

Youngkin has supported the continuous attack of President Trump on the jobs of federal workers. He and other Republican governors have signed a letter saying that “the federal government must be reduced to dimensions. We are ready to help. “Virginia had the second largest federal workers in the country before mass redundancies.

Youngkin’s clemency for Shifflett is part of a larger model at national level. In January, Trump has pardoned two DC officers who were convicted and suspended for their roles in a car chase by Karon Hylton-Brown, 20 years old. The two officers, Târce Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky, were sentenced in 2023 to four and half prison respectively. On March 3, both were reinstalled to the full police tasks, according to the department.

Also, Trump has pardoned or switched the sentences of all the people who stormed the chapter building on January 6, 2021 in support of his attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s elections as president in 2020.

Monday, The Washington Post Reported several rebellions have successfully sought to extend the influence of their gradations to include dismissing accusations that are not related to their participation in the coup attempt on January 6th. This was produced even though the federal authorities found in some cases large amounts of drugs and weapons.

The police shot 1,164 people in 2023, the latest year for which reliable numbers are available. This is an increase from 1,097 a year before. The number of killings by the police continued to climb both during democratic and republican administrations.

During his time, President Biden increased financing for police departments from all over the country, after cynically exploited the popular outrage around George Floyd’s killing in May 2020. He later said in 2022, “the answer is not to break up.”

The uninterrupted support of the Republican Party for police departments throughout the country is in accordance with Trump’s efforts to establish a presidential dictatorship.