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Dustin Griffin was shot five times in the torso by one Augusta County sheriff’s deputy, before a second deputy who had been wrestling with Griffin during the service of an arrest warrant at an address on Parkersburg Turnpike on the night of Dec. 17 shot Griffin in the head.
The shots fired by the deputies, I was told today, by Tim Martin, the Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney – who has reviewed the bodycam footage from the incident – came after Griffin, 42, who died at the scene, produced a gun, “the officers don’t know it’s there, and he brings it around and points it at the first officer.”
The prosecutor went on from here to provide to me a detailed play-by-play of the roughly 45 seconds that transpired between the bodycams being activated and the shots ringing out.
I haven’t seen the bodycam footage for myself, so I can’t independently verify anything from what Martin told me; and because I can’t independently verify what was told to me, I’m stopping here, in terms of relaying back what was relayed to me.
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Martin did offer today to get a request in to the Virginia State Police, which is still in the process of investigating the shooting, to allow me to watch the footage, so that I can fill in that gap.
I asked him to instead prioritize allowing members of Griffin’s family, who, I understand, have not been contacted by investigators in the three weeks since Griffin was shot and killed, to see the video, if they wish.
Martin, to his credit, spent more than an hour on the phone with me today to explain his controversial – judging from the comments on social media, both here on our AFP channels and on the Facebook page of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office – decision to issue a rather defiant statement on Wednesday exonerating the unnamed deputies who fired the fatal shots.
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“On December 17, 2025, Dustin Griffin attempted to murder an Augusta County sheriff’s deputy,” Martin began his statement. “Although he was unsuccessful, he did shoot a deputy in the arm, seriously wounding him. Before Griffin was able to kill that deputy or any of the other deputies on the scene, deputies shot Griffin to death. Their actions were not only justified, but entirely necessary.”
Martin concluded the statement:
“Obviously, none of the deputies will be charged for their lifesaving actions that night.”
“I’ll tell you that I based my conclusion in part on the interviews, and in part on what the State Police did,” said Martin, who was first elected to the Commonwealth’s Attorney post in 2015, and is in Year 3 of his third term in the job.
To the critics from the socials who are wondering about this: yes, that means Martin would be up for re-election again next year.
Just being clear here: nobody wants that job; and also, it’s hard, if not impossible, for somebody from the outside to beat an incumbent.
Which is to say: if you don’t like it that he doesn’t seem to care that he comes across as being an advocate for the Sheriff’s Office, and not an independent arbiter for the citizenry of Augusta County, hey, that’s your problem.
Back to Martin on his decision in the Griffin case:
“The fact is, there’s one set of evidence that outweighs most everything else, and that’s the benefit of body-worn camera footage, because you have video footage of exactly what took place,” Martin said.
That footage has not been made public, because the Virginia State Police still considers the investigation ongoing.
Late Wednesday, I made a request, through the Freedom of Information Act, for a copy of the footage, and whatever would constitute the State Police report into the shooting that Martin sees he has been able to consult.
The response back to me from the VSP early Thursday:
The records you have requested are part of an active criminal investigative file of the Virginia Department of State Police. Active criminal investigative files are exempt from the production requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act pursuant to Virginia Code § 2.2-3706.1 (C). As such, the requested records will not be released.
Figures.
It shouldn’t be odd to me that I was made to feel by Martin that he was doing me a favor in going to bat for me to get a glimpse at the bodycam footage.
Martin isn’t going to like reading this, but I recognized that instantly as a sly attempt on his part to goad me into compliance.
It didn’t work, as you’re being made aware as you read, but I don’t begrudge the effort.
I do think it is odd to learn that there might not be an actual written report from the VSP to review whenever the investigators decide that they’re done with the case.
“I don’t know if they’re going to type up a report,” Martin told me, and from our conversation, it doesn’t sound like this is afoul of any protocol.
I made an observation here, as we discussed that point, that the lack of a report makes the claim made by the sheriff’s office that Donald Smith, the county sheriff, had turned over responsibility for the investigation to the State Police come across like a misdirection – that it sounds like nobody is taking the notion of an actual investigation seriously, if there’s no written report at the end of the process.
“Oh, it’s very serious, it’s incredibly serious. Somebody died. It’s just not a close call,” Martin said.
“My whole job here is to determine if somebody committed a crime there that night, that’s it. And somebody did, but he’s dead now,” Martin said.
“I can’t give you the State Police’s report. Not that there’s a report to be given. It’s just, and there’s not, it’s not, this isn’t one where the State Police investigator was like, really tough, what do we do here, you know, Tim, what’s your … I mean, it’s not, this isn’t a close call, one, it’s not,” Martin said.
I’ve been a journalist for 30 years, and gotta say, I was today years old when I found out that when a law-enforcement agency turns over an investigation into an officer-involved shooting to the State Police, the State Police doesn’t wrap things up at the end with a formal written report.
I was also today years old when I came to know that the sum of the investigating was watching the body-cam footage.
I asked Martin if anybody outside of the three deputies and the probation officer who were at the scene was interviewed; he answered my question with a question.
“I would just ask, to what end?” he said.
Just to be clear here, I don’t watch police dramas on TV; I just assume, from my years in journalism, that if you’re going to call what you’re doing an investigation, you’d actually talk to people as part of said investigation, not just watch a video.
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I mean, speaking as a nobody small-town journalist, that’s what I’ve done with this case.
And from me just talking with people around the case, I’ve learned that there has been confusion among those who know the side of the story not told in the bodycam footage over the decision to serve the arrest warrant in the middle of the night on Dec. 17 when Griffin had met voluntarily with deputies at the Sheriff’s Office a day or two earlier, and also had a court date for a vehicle-registration summons set for Dec. 22, five days later.
It was also related to me that there was an apparent conflict between Griffin and one of the deputies involved in the service of the arrest warrant.
Martin alluded to there being a previous connection of some sort in his statement of exoneration, referring to “one deputy – who was known to Griffin” in his write-up.
There have also been questions raised about why the deputies felt it necessary to engage Griffin physically after he made the attempt to flee into the night, putting themselves and Griffin at risk if the physical struggle that would ensue would escalate, as it did.
The concern from family and friends is that there may be more to this part of the story than can be learned from simply relying on bodycam footage.
“I don’t think that’s their job,” Martin said, of the lack of interviews. “Their job is to look into this and determine if there’s criminal activity. Not to find out about, you know, Dustin’s history, or any of that.”
Wow.
Just, wow.
So, if there is more to this story than just the bodycam footage – whatever that bodycam footage may reveal, whenever those outside officialdom are able to view it – it looks like we will never know, not officially, anyway.
Because that’s not their job.