Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin overturned the conviction of a former deputy who was sentenced to serve three years in prison for fatally shooting an unarmed Black man accused of shoplifting from a mall.
Ex-deputy Wesley Gonzalez Shifflet received a full pardon on Jan. 15 from Youngkin, just two days before the outgoing governor’s term was set to end.
Shifflett, who formerly worked for the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, shot 37-year-old Timothy McCree Johnson to death on Feb. 22, 2023.
Johnson was suspected of stealing sunglasses from a mall in northern Virginia, and Shifflett chased him out of the shopping center into a wooded area.
Body camera footage reportedly showed Shifflett yell, “Get on the ground!” as he was chasing Johnson, then immediately open fire two seconds later.
Shifflett was heard telling Johnson to “stop reaching,” after assuming that Johnson was putting his hand in his waistband, but Johnson can be heard responding, “I’m not reaching for nothing. I don’t have nothing.”
During his trial, the former cop testified that Johnson’s “motor functions were operating more quickly than I could verbalize.”
In October 2024, Shifflett was convicted of reckless firearm use, but was acquitted of the more serious charge of manslaughter
In February 2025, he was sentenced to serve three years in prison, but he only spent two nights in custody before Youngkin vacated his sentence.
At the time, Youngkin called Shifflett’s sentence “unjust” and maintained that it went beyond the state’s sentencing guidelines.
“I am convinced that the court’s sentence of incarceration is unjust and violates the cornerstone of our justice system — that similarly situated individuals receive proportionate sentences. I want to emphasize that a jury acquitted Sgt. Shifflett of the more serious charge of involuntary manslaughter, a conviction for which the sentencing guidelines recommend no jail time or up to six months’ incarceration,” Youngkin said last year.
Johnson’s mother rebuked Youngkin for commuting the sentence, calling the governor’s actions “egregious, malicious and prejudiced.”
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano also called the decision “garbage” and accused Youngkin of making a decision purely driven by political motives.
“Glenn Youngkin’s decision to commute this sentence is garbage. It’s absolute garbage. It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous because it has nothing to do with the law or the facts. It has everything to do with Glenn Youngkin’s political ambition and trying to get on Donald Trump’s radar,” Descano said.
A newly released report obtained by The Associated Press includes Youngkin’s justification for granting Shifflett a full pardon.
He concluded that the deputy’s actions were objectively reasonable because he thought Johnson had “posed a significant threat of death or serious injury to him when he used deadly force.”
“The deadly force used by Sgt. Wesley Gonzalez Shifflett on February 22, 2023, was both lawful and consistent with the department’s policy and training,” Youngkin wrote in his pardon.
