Fairfax County Police shot and killed a man suspected of shoplifting Wednesday night in a wooded area near Tysons Corner Center, Chief Kevin Davis said.
“We struck the suspect. I don’t know how many times yet. The suspect was afforded immediate medical attention,” Davis said. “He was transported to a local hospital and died.”
Police were notified about a possible theft by the mall’s loss prevention officers, Kevin Davis said during a news conference Wednesday night.
Two police assigned to the Tysons area, one uniformed and one in plainclothes, located and approached the suspect, who then fled approximately a quarter-mile from from the Tysons store to a small wooded area adjacent to the mall’s parking lot.
There, about 20 to 30 yards into the “thick, wooded patch,” both police officers discharged their firearms, Davis said, striking the man in the upper body. The suspect died at the hospital. Neither officer was injured.
“The circumstances surrounding the [weapons] discharge, of course, are under investigation,” Davis said, adding that investigators would conduct a more thorough search of the area Thursday to determine whether the suspect was armed. The nature of the shoplifting incident also remains under investigation.
Davis did not release the suspect’s name, pending notification of next of kin, but did say the man is well known to law enforcement throughout the area.
“His encounters with local law enforcement in the National Capital Region span back many years, and it’s a violent criminal history,” Davis said.
Additional information, including body camera footage captured by the uniformed officer, is expected to be released to the public in the coming weeks.
Feature image courtesy Fairfax County Police Department/Facebook.
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