RICHMOND — A grand jury has unanimously found that two Virginia State Police troopers were justified in using deadly force in a Jan. 9 shooting that killed 18-year-old Xzavier Hill, of Charlottesville, after a pursuit that reached speeds of 120 mph on Interstate 64 in Goochland County.
Goochland Commonwealth’s Attorney D. Michael Caudill announced the decision Friday evening, noting the court approved the release of the grand jury’s report. Separately, Caudill released the police dashcam video from a trooper’s car that captured much of the event.
“On Jan. 9, 2021 Xzavier Deyonte Hill initiated and continued to engage in an escalating course of dangerous conduct resulting in a violent confrontation with law enforcement,” the multijurisdictional grand jury, which serves the counties of Goochland, Powhatan, Louisa, Amelia and Prince Edward, concluded in its report. “Mr. Hill’s failure to comply with the commands of the troopers and then introduce a firearm into a rapidly evolving event provided a reasonable basis for the officers to believe they were in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.”
“In reviewing all of the evidence in its totality this body unanimously determines that the actions of Trooper Bone and Trooper Layton were reasonable, justified, and supported by the facts and circumstances as they were known to the troopers at the time,” the grand jurors added. “Accordingly, we unanimously find there is no probable cause to believe the troopers committed any criminal offense in the shooting of Xzavier Deyonte Hill.”
Hill died of a gunshot wound to the neck, according to an autopsy report. A corresponding toxicology report noted the presence of marijuana in Hill’s system at the time of his death, according to the grand jury’s report.
During their confrontation with Hill, Trooper B. Bone fired three shots from his service pistol and Trooper S. Layton fired one shot. Their first names were not included in the report.
Following the shooting and after the scene was secured, police found a semiautomatic pistol in the front passenger seat of Hill’s Mercedes sedan that appeared to be covered in blood, according to the report. A .40-caliber cartridge was jammed in the chamber but the gun contained no magazine.
A day after the shooting, the owner of a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol reported to Old Dominion University police that the firearm had been stolen from his vehicle between Jan. 7 and Jan. 10. The gun’s owner was known to Hill, and on Jan. 8, Hill had been in that person’s vehicle, the report says.
Two digital images recovered from Hill’s cellphone show him holding, in his right hand, an object similar in appearance to a semiautomatic pistol. In addition, a digital image created on Jan. 8 and recovered from Hill’s cellphone depicts the stolen Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol and magazine in the lap of a person in the driver’s seat of Hill’s car, according to the report.
The shooting
The incident that led to Hill’s death began about 4:35 a.m. in Henrico County near Short Pump. Hill, while driving his Mercedes, was clocked with radar traveling 96 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone with only one headlight displayed on his vehicle.
The two troopers, driving in separate vehicles, began to follow Hill’s car without yet activating their emergency lights and sirens to pull over his vehicle. Hill continued to drive at speeds of 93 to 97 mph while repeatedly swerving into an adjacent lane, according to the report’s findings of fact.
After the troopers activated their emergency lights and sirens to initiate the traffic stop, Hill turned off the headlights and taillights of his Mercedes and accelerated to 120 mph.
Hill then slowed and pulled his car to the right shoulder to comply with the troopers’ signal to stop. But instead of stopping, Hill attempted make a U-turn in an effort to drive eastbound in the westbound lanes of I-64. He was unsuccessful in making the U-turn and drove onto the median, where his vehicle slid sideways down a slight embankment facing east, the report says.
Trooper Layton positioned his cruiser almost perpendicular to Hill’s vehicle, and both troopers approached Hill’s car with their weapons drawn, directing Hill to comply with their demands. As the troopers approached, Hill attempted to extricate his car from the median by repeatedly accelerating, causing the rear wheels to spin.
According to the grand jury’s report, Trooper Bone then gave Hill a series of commands before shots were fired, saying, “Show me your hands, do it now! Put your hands up! Put your hands out the door! Stop reaching! Gun!”
Layton gave similar commands and said, “Get out of the car now! Put your hands up! Let me see your hands! Put your hands out the door! Stop moving! Put your hands out the window! Hey, he’s reaching, reaching, reaching! He’s got a gun! Gun! Gun! Gun!”
At that point, Hill placed his left hand out of the driver’s side window for about three seconds before pulling his arm back into his vehicle. “At no time did Mr. Hill display his right hand outside of the vehicle or within the vehicle in a nonthreatening manner,” according to the report’s finding of facts.
After Hill pulled his left arm back into his vehicle, Layton observed Hill reaching into the vehicle’s passenger compartment and announced Hill’s movements to Bone.
Bone then shouted, “Stop reaching! Gun!” but Hill refused to comply. Layton shouted, “He’s got a gun! Gun! Gun! Gun!”
The troopers then fired. Hill was struck by one bullet that entered his left hand, a second bullet that entered the left side of his face, and a third that entered the base of his neck.
After the troopers fired the shots, Bone shouted, “He’s got a gun in his hands.” Bone then said to Layton, “It was in his right hand.” Layton replied, “Yeah, I saw it. I saw it clear as day.”
Hill’s family
Members of Hill’s family was allowed to view the police dashcam video days after the shooting, and his mother, LaToya Benton, said during a Jan. 15 news conference that the troopers’ actions were unjustified, based on what she observed in the video.
Benton said the officers never gave her son a chance to get out of his car, that he placed his left hand outside the driver’s side window when commanded by troopers to show his hands, and she didn’t see a gun in her son’s hands in the moments before he was shot. She also said Hill was left-handed and “couldn’t shoot with his right hand.”
The findings of fact say the gun Hill displayed was not captured on the dashcam video because of the position of the trooper’s car with respect to Hill’s vehicle.
“From the vantage point on the sloping median embankment, being above and looking down into the Mercedes, the troopers were in a position to see Mr. Hill’s movements, and the handgun he possessed, that are not captured by the dashboard camera video,” the report says.
The report says the images captured on Hill’s cellphone that show him holding a gun in his right hand “are of significance because of the allegations on social media that Mr. Hill was left-handed and would not have had a gun in his right hand as observed by the troopers. The evidence presented to this body clearly shows Mr. Hill was possessed of such ability as to utilize a handgun in his right hand.”
Benton said at the Jan. 15 news conference that on the morning of the shooting, her son was returning to Charlottesville, where he was living in an apartment while working for Benton, whose family owns a cleaning company. He graduated last year from Stafford High School, where he played football and other sports, Benton said.
Hill’s family couldn’t immediately be reached Friday night for comment on the grand jury’s findings.
Hill’s family and supporters have held numerous protest marches around the state since the shooting, demanding that police or the commonwealth’s attorney’s office release the dashcam video for the public to see.
Caudill, the Goochland’s commonwealth’s attorney, said Friday that the video was being made available on his office’s website “in response to Mr. Hill’s family’s recurring demand for its public release.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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