By Brian Trompeter
Fairfax County police are investigating a Feb. 22 officer-involved shooting on the Tysons Corner Center property that left a 37-year-old District of Columbia man dead.
Officers from the police department’s 16-member Tyson Urban Team responded around 6:30 p.m. to an alleged theft in progress at Nordstrom, 8075 Tysons Corner Center. The store’s asset-protection personnel told police a man was concealing designer sunglasses.
An officer observed the man exiting the store near a parking garage. As the suspect fled the store, he triggered an anti-theft alarm, police said.
The suspect, identified as Timothy McCree Johnson, ran through the parking garage, across the parking lot and then 20 to 30 yards into a thickly wooded area on the mall property. The officers – one uniformed, the other in plain clothes – throughout the chase, including into the wood line, gave him commands to get on the ground, police said.
While in the wooded area, the two officers discharged their firearms, striking Johnson in the chest once, police said. Officers rendered aid until Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department personnel arrived. Rescue personnel took Johnson to an area hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.
“The suspect who was shot this evening was absolutely very well-known to law enforcement in the National Capital Region,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a press briefing the night of the shooting. “He in fact has a significant violent criminal history.”
The suspect had been seen with another male earlier in the evening. Police have yet to identify the other person, but he was not involved in the shoplifting incident or subsequent foot chase, Davis said.
The officers were not injured during the incident. While not speculating on what the suspect may or may not have had in his hands when the shooting occurred, police officers typically discharge their firearms only if they think their lives or those of others are endangered, the chief said.
The officers involved in the shooting have served with the department for seven and eight years, respectively, and both are assigned to the Tysons Urban Team. Per department policy, they have been placed on restricted-duty status, pending the outcome of the criminal and administrative investigations.
The department’s Major Crimes Bureau is conducting the criminal investigation into the officers’ use of force. The uniformed officer involved in the shooting was wearing a body-worn camera.
The police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau is conducting an administrative investigation, and there also will be an independent review by the police auditor.
