Two former Virginia sheriff’s deputies now face felony homicide charges in connection with the death of a 77-year-old man with dementia during a 2022 traffic stop.
After deputies pulled over Ralph Ennis for speeding near Front Royal, he was pushed into a trailer hitch and fell to the ground, striking his head, body camera video shows. He died two weeks later.
Former Warren County deputies Zachary Fadely and Tyler Poe initially were charged with involuntary manslaughter. This week, a grand jury indictment upgraded the charges to felony homicide.
Both men are free on bond.
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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 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.
According to the Warren County Sheriff's Office, deputies began following 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.
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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.
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.
The Prince William County commonwealth’s attorney is serving as a special prosecutor in the case.
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