A Fairfax County police officer has been fired following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Timothy McCree Johnson outside Tysons Corner Center in February, the department announced Thursday.

Authorities identified the officer as Sergeant Wesley Shifflett, a seven-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, according to the Washington Post. Shifflett was one of two officers who fired at Johnson as they chased him into a wooded area outside the mall — the other is Officer James Sadler, an eight-year veteran. The Post reports Sadler is still with the department on “modified restricted duty assignment,” which means he is not permitted to interact with the public.

“The separation of one of the two officers is because there was a failure to live up to the expectations of particular use of force policies, protocols, and procedure,” said Police Chief Kevin Davis during a press conference on Thursday.

The shooting occurred Feb. 22 after officers received a call that Johnson had allegedly stolen a pair of sunglasses from the mall, authorities said. Footage from Shifflett’s body worn camera, released to the public on Thursday, shows the officer running through a retail store and eventually chasing Johnson outside through a parking garage and onto a street. The officer runs after Johnson toward a wooded area and yells out “get on the ground” several times, footage shows. It’s difficult to make out Johnson’s location as three shots ring out. Authorities said Johnson was struck once in the chest and died at an area hospital.

During the press conference, Davis repeatedly declined to comment on specifics about the video or the officers who fired their guns, except to say that one officer fired two shots and the other officer fired one.

“I will not characterize the evidence, I will not offer an opinion on the evidence,” Davis said. “There is an expectation that we should be in a position to do so, and I absolutely understand that. Doing so now, we compromise the integrity of the criminal investigation.”

The department’s Major Crimes Bureau is conducting an investigation into the killing, which will be presented to Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County. Descano said he will make a decision “on how to best proceed” with the case in the coming weeks, following an investigation. FCPD will also conduct an administrative investigation into the officers.

“I have seen and am devastated by the body-worn camera footage showing yet another death of a Black man at the hands of police. My heart grieves for the Johnsons, who lost a beloved family member over an incident involving a pair of sunglasses,” Descano said in a statement Thursday. “Like many members of our community, I sincerely hope to see the day when police shootings are a thing of the past.”

Johsnon’s family, who viewed the body camera footage privately on Wednesday, has decried the shooting, and said Johnson posed no threat to officers. Carl Crews, the lawyer representing the family, has called the killing of Johnson — a father of two children, ages 9 and 12-years-old — an execution.

“The best way to describe the video is to say first what was not on it,” Carl Crews, an attorney for the Johnson family, told the Washington Post after viewing the footage Wednesday. “What it doesn’t show: danger. It doesn’t show the officers faced any danger — imminent or otherwise.”

In the days after Johnson’s killing, Michelle Leete, the president of the Fairfax County NAACP, posted a GoFundMe in support of Johnson’s mother, Melissa, and her grandchildren. She described Johnson as an “avid creative spirit,” who enjoyed designing clothes, and was learning how to be a barber.

“Timothy Johnson’s story is all too familiar,” she wrote. “An encounter with the police ends in death.”

Davis said on Thursday that the department — and most police departments across the country — currently has no policy regarding foot pursuits. (A 2012 study found that more than 85% of police departments did not maintain a foot pursuit policy.) Research has found that over an eight-year period in Chicago, half of all police shootings occurred after or during a foot pursuit. A study of foot pursuits and police shootings in Philadelphia also reached a similar conclusion. Last year, Chicago joined cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia in implementing rules about when officers can engage in a pursuit, after two foot pursuits in recent years ended in the death of 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez and 13-year-old Adam Toledo. The new policy bans officers from chasing people on foot only because they’ve run away, or they’re believed to have committed minor offenses, like drinking in public or traffic violations.

Shortly after Johnson’s killing, FCPD announced a partnership with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) that would review all police shootings in the county since the start of 2021. PERF will be delivering guidance on foot pursuit policy, according to Davis, but it will not be focusing solely on Johnson’s killing. Instead, the review will take a broad look at police shootings in the past two years.

Police killed Johnson days after the county released its budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which included a $3 million boost to the police department. In an Instagram post following Johnson’s death, Defund Nova Police, an abolitionist group, called on the county to take 50% of the police budget and put it towards housing, education, and healthcare.

“We condemn FCPD’s violence, hold Johnson’s family and community in our hearts, and demand that Fairfax County divest from violent, racist policing and invest in resources that support true community safety,” reads the post. “To create safer communities, we must end cycles of poverty by addressing their root causes, not further criminalize and harm those most affected by those cycles and thus at greatest risk of police violence: our Black, brown, disabled, queer, trans, and unhoused neighbors.”

Jeffrey McKay, chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, released a statement on Thursday afternoon expressing condolences to the family, but also largely praising the county for “progress that is currently taking place” regarding police accountability, including “hundreds of recommendations, policy changes, and training to reflect our community’s values” over the past eight years. In 2022, Fairfax County police shot six people — the highest number since 2013, when officers shot three people.

“The timely naming of the officers, more expeditious criminal and administrative investigations, and today’s release of body worn camera footage, are all being done as a result of our reforms,” he said in a statement.