Webster denies bond in police officer murder case

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The man charged in the shooting death of Charleston police officer Cassie Johnson will stay in jail awaiting trial.

Kanawha County Circuit Judge Carrie Webster denied bond Friday for Joshua Phillips.

“The nature of the crime, the seriousness of the crime, is in my view insurmountable,” Webster said.

Phillips, 38, of Charleston, shot Johnson during an altercation on Dec. 1 on Garrison Avenue in Charleston. She died two days later.

Johnson returned fire on Phillips. His attorney, John Sullivan of the Kanawha County Public Defender’s Office, told Webster Friday Phillips still has two bullets lodged in him. One in his shoulder and one in his back.

“He is able to walk without assistance but with great pain and very slowly,” Sullivan said. “He is extremely limited physically in anything that he can do.”

Sullivan asked for $100,000 bail and home confinement. He told Webster Phillips’ mother, Delores Phillips, wanted to take care of him.

Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Don Morris successfully argued against bail. He said Phillips can get the medical treatment he needs in jail.

“If anyone would have reason to flee, he would,” Morris said.

Morris told Webster the state’s case against Phillips is strong. He described how Johnson responded to Garrison Avenue on a parking complaint and watched Phillips come out of a known drug house. She approached Phillips about his parked car and asked him if he had anything on his person. Morris said Johnson tried to handcuff Phillips for security until backup arrived and then Phillips threw the handcuffs across the street and grabbed a .45 caliber gun he had under his clothing while trying to keep Johnson from grabbing her firearm.

“There was a struggle. Mr. Phillips emptied his .45 at and into 28-year-old Cassie Johnson causing her to have her spinal cord severed and she dropped face first into the mud on Garrison Avenue,” Morris said.

He said there are three cameras that recorded what happened.

“Officer Johnson had her body-cam that day and there’s no question about the strength of the state’s case. We also have her dash-cam and we also have a camera from across the street that records the five shots that Mr. Phillips shot at and into Officer Johnson,” Morris said.

Morris said Phillips had 63 Klonipin pills, a Schedule 4 drug, on him that he had purchased at the drug house. Morris said that’s an amount a dealer would have.

Morris also told the court that Phillips’ mother had given him the gun he used in the shooting 18 days before the incident.

Both Morris and Webster said there was en effort to get the case to trial as quickly as possible. Morris said the prosecution was hoping for an early March trial date.

Webster did tell the defense to let her know if Phillips was having any problems getting the medical treatment that he needed and she would make sure it was being provided.