A current sheriff's deputy and a former deputy have been indicted for injuring a 77-year-old man who hit his head during an arrest in Warren County, Virginia, prosecutors said Monday. The man later died.
Ralph Ennis, a Navy veteran, worked for years in Northern Virginia as a bricklayer before he and his wife, Linda, moved to Pennsylvania in 2010. Linda Ennis told News4 last year that her husband had been struggling with dementia. He was the subject of a Silver Alert for missing senior citizens just a month before he died.
Ennis hit his head as the deputies attempted to arrest him near Front Royal, Virginia, authorities have said. Body camera video showed a deputy slamming him face-forward into his own pickup truck.
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A grand jury returned felony assault indictments Monday against a current Warren County sheriff's deputy and a former Warren County sheriff's deputy in the case.
According to the Warren County Sheriff's Office, deputies began following Ralph Ennis with their emergency lights activated in the early morning hours of April 2, 2022. He was driving 63 mph in a 55 mph zone and was driving erratically, the sheriff's office said. They say he wouldn't pull over at first, but Ennis finally stopped when he pulled his pickup truck up to a 7-Eleven. He followed deputies' commands to get out of his vehicle, but then, they said, he did not to comply when they told him to drop his keys and put his hands behind his back.
The deputies advanced and put Ennis' hands behind his back. The Warren County Sheriff's Office initially said Ennis fell over the trailer hitch of his truck. However, body-worn camera video later revealed that deputies slammed Ennis into the pickup truck and tackled him to the ground.
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Body cam video from a Front Royal officer who was at the scene showed a Warren County deputy run toward Ennis, who appeared to be stumbling around. The deputy then grabbed Ennis and slammed him face-forward into the back of Ennis' truck. Then that deputy and another one appeared to tackle Ennis to the ground.
"Get on the ground!" one deputy was heard yelling on the video.
During the tackle, Ennis and the deputies appear to trip over the truck's trailer hitch.
The Front Royal officer can be heard saying in the body camera video, "That was ... unjust and ... un[expletive] called for."
Ennis was taken to a local hospital for treatment of his head injury when his wife got the first frightening call.
"At that point, the hospital discovered Ralph had a brain bleed, and they were transferring him to Winchester Trauma," Linda Ennis recalled.
Her husband died 13 days later.
Virginia State Police began an investigation into whether Warren County deputies handled the arrest properly and whether the injuries led to his death.
Linda Ennis told News4 the body camera video showed a different situation than what the sheriff's office had previously told her.
"It was very difficult to watch. I wish that I hadn't watched it now," she told News4 last year.
The commonwealth's attorney for Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park announced the charges Monday.
Former Deputy Sheriff Zachary Fadley was indicted on one count of maliciously wounding Ralph Ennis. Fadley faces a 20-year maximum sentence if convicted.
Current Deputy Sheriff Tyler Poe was indicted on one count of unlawfully wounding Ennis. Poe faces a maximum sentence of five years if convicted.
The defendants are expected to appear soon before the Warren County Circuit Court to be arraigned. A trial date will be scheduled then, the prosecutor's office said.
