GLOUCESTER — A man shot by Gloucester sheriff’s deputies last month actually died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Gloucester Darrell Warren said at a news conference Friday.
Willie Dion Giles, 52, died March 25 after opening fire on sheriff’s deputies, who shot back, the sheriff said.
The conclusion by the Virginia State Police and the state medical examiner that Giles died by his own hand came as a surprise to the Sheriff’s Office, Warren said.
“We watched this thing over and over and over again,” he said of the body camera footage.
Everything happened so quickly — only a few seconds from start to finish — that it was easy to miss on the footage that Giles shot himself, Warren said.
But investigators later noticed a different sound in the footage’s audio after Giles was falling to the ground and held a gun to his head.
“He falls, he rolls, and then you hear that very distinctively different sound gunshot,” Warren said.
While Giles was shot multiple times by deputies, the sheriff said, none of those wounds were life-threatening.
Warren invited the media to the Gloucester Sheriff’s Office Friday to watch officer body camera footage from the incident at about 5:30 p.m. March 25 in the 7000 block of Ark Road.
A woman who had been in a prior relationship with Giles had broken up with him, leaving him distraught.
She called 911 from a Home Depot parking lot, saying Giles was threatening to break into her home and vowed to “kill himself and my dog.”
Footage from a Ring camera system at the front of the home shows Giles communicating with the woman through the system, promising to “leave a bloody mess” if deputies showed up.
According to the 911 call, the woman told the dispatcher that Giles wouldn’t go quietly if deputies came. “He said he would kill himself first,” the woman told her.
Footage from body-worn cameras shows two Gloucester deputies arriving at the home separately, walking past a green pickup with its front door still flung open.
The deputies held their guns at the ready as they walked to the back of the house, one from either side of the ranch-style home.
“I have a male on the back porch,” a male deputy tells a female deputy over his radio. “Light-skinned Black male, heavy set.”
Giles is at the back steps, with the officers then shouting verbal commands to show his hands.
It’s often difficult to make out what’s happening on the fast-unfolding footage, but Warren said investigators have determined that Giles fired first at the female deputy.
“Without hesitation, Giles raised a handgun ... pointed directly at Deputy 2 and fired,” Warren said. Then Giles quickly “spun around” and fired three rounds at the male deputy coming the other way.
Both deputies returned fire, striking Giles multiple times. He fired his fifth shot — on himself — as he rolled on the ground. All told, Warren said, there were “10 or more shots between everybody.”
Neither officer was struck.
A 9mm handgun was still near Giles on the ground, the footage shows. Medics from a fire station across the street from the home had him airlifted to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he died that night.
Warren asked the Virginia State Police to investigate the shooting.
And this week, the county’s top prosecutor found the officers justified: Gloucester Commonwealth’s Attorney John Dusewicz and Chief Deputy Marie Walls cleared the officers of any criminal wrongdoing.
“We conclude that there’s no criminal misconduct by (either deputy),” the letter said. “Their actions were not only justified but showed extraordinary calmness under pressure, skill, thought, and actions that we expect from our law enforcement officers.”
In an interview Friday, Walls agreed that Giles died of a self-inflicted wound, which she said is clear in part from photographs, as well as from marks the fatal gunshot left on his body after the shooting. Investigators were able to watch the footage frame by frame, she added.
But even if deputies had fired the fatal rounds, Walls said, it was still a justified killing.
Warren said both deputies are on the newer side, with “less than five years of service” with the Sheriff’s Office. But he declined to release their names, saying he wanted to shield their identities in a small community.
“The two deputies are victims of attempted capital murder, and we don’t release victim information in any case,” he said. “So I’m not going to do it here.”
Warren also would not release the body camera footage to the public, going so far as to ask the gathered media Friday to turn off their own cameras before he played the videos.
“I don’t see the value in putting Giles’ family through it,” he said. “I don’t see the value in putting the deputies through it. I don’t see the value in putting the homeowner through it. I just don’t see the value.”
Warren also said tactical information on the video about how officers respond to such an incident could be used against officers later.
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He said he was “quite honestly shocked” that police in Tennessee released footage of officers going through a building after an April shooting in Nashville.
“I think we would be in a different situation if I had people protesting in the street that there was wrongdoing,” Warren said. “We haven’t had none of that, thank God.”
But he said would be “shocked” if any of the media viewing the video footage Friday saw the shooting differently than a justified shooting.
The two deputies have been on administrative leave with pay since the incident but should be back to work soon following a psychological evaluation.
“They both seem to be doing well,” Warren said. “We’ve stayed in constant communication with both of them.”
“Giles came to this residence with evil intentions and was interrupted by two courageous deputies who miraculously were able to survive his attempts to shoot his way out of the situation,” the sheriff said.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com