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Deadly police shooting ruled ‘justified’

Posted at 10:11 AM, May 15, 2013
and last updated 2013-05-15 19:07:50-04

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) - A multi-jurisdictional grand jury has ruled the Jan. 2013 police shooting of a man on the Chippenham Parkway ramp from Hull Street Road was justified. An internal police investigation into the shooting is ongoing, Chesterfield Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Caroon wrote in an email.

On Jan. 13, about 3 a.m., a Chesterfield Police officer shot and killed 45-year-old Frankie Pitt after he said the two got into a fight and Pitt reached for his gun.

When the officer first came across Pitt's car he said he believed Pitt was a "disabled motorist." However the officer then figured out Pitt was the suspect in two cash register thefts in two different parts of Chesterfield County. One of the thefts was reported about 10 minutes before the shooting, police said.

The police officer suffered non-life threatening injuries and was treated at a local hospital.

In the days following the shooting, Pitt's fiancee said he would never have stolen from anyone. She looked at the video police released of a man stealing from the cash registers and said the man did not look like Pitt.