RICHMOND, Va. — A state lawmaker is taking action to address what she described as "systemic failures" that led up to the fatal police shooting of a man in a mental health crisis.
In 2023, Charles Byers was shot and killed by a Chesterfield County police officer. The past two and half years since then have been filled with pain and grief for his family.
“There's just this hole. We had this setup with Christmas stockings. There's only four. There used to be five, and that hurts my heart," Charles' mother Peggy Byers said.
But they're finding a glimmer of hope in new proposed state legislation that aims to prevent what happened to Byers from happening to anyone else.
“That gives me some solace. That gives me some hope," Peggy said.
As CBS 6 has previously reported, Byers was fatally shot by a police officer in the middle of a residential neighborhood on July 8, 2023. A neighbor had called 911 to report an attempted breaking and entering, and when officers arrived on scene, they found Byers holding a hatchet. Less than a minute later and after noncompliance with verbal commands to drop the hatchet, an officer fired several shots at Byers as he was backing away and fired more shots at his back, according to body camera video. The officer was cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but his actions are still being contested in civil court.
Video shows Chesterfield Police shoot, kill mentally ill man holding hatchet
We would later learn that Byers was under an active temporary detention order (TDO) at the time of his death. His family had taken him to Chippenham Hospital on July 5 for a mental health emergency, and he was further placed under a TDO on July 6, which was authorized by a Richmond magistrate. The TDO meant he was court ordered to be held in a psychiatric facility for mental health treatment for up to 72 hours, because he was incapable of caring for himself.
However, CBS 6 uncovered that Byers was arrested by Richmond Police and removed from the hospital for kicking a nurse. At that point, he had only been admitted to a bed for about three hours and still had never been seen by a psychiatrist. Health inspectors found the hospital failed to communicate Byers' "dire mental health needs" and TDO status to the arresting officer. The Byers family sued the hospital and Richmond Police, alleging they improperly and prematurely removed Byers without ensuring he got the treatment he needed. All parties settled the case for an undisclosed amount.
Byers, facing an assault charge, then went before a Richmond magistrate for a bail proceeding, in which his TDO was never mentioned. Despite a Richmond magistrate initially signing off on his TDO, the magistrate decided to release Byers back into the community. 36 hours later, he made it from Richmond to his neighborhood in Chesterfield, where he was shot and killed.
“It doesn't make sense to me that there was no communication even in the magistrate's office," Peggy said.
“This family was not aware that he had been arrested, he was not in the hospital, and that he had been released into the city," said Delegate Debra Gardner, a Democrat representing Chesterfield County.
CBS 6 first talked to Delegate Gardner about the case in 2024. At the time, she said Byers' death was the result of systemic failures and vowed to take action.
"I actually reached out to all the entities involved related to this incident: the magistrate, the commonwealth's attorney, the police and everyone, trying to figure out how, if possible, I could help my constituents try to do something to make sure that the same thing that happened to Mr. Byers does not happen to anybody else. Because, as I said before, this was kind of a perfect storm of everything that went wrong," Gardner told CBS 6.
Now, in the 2026 General Assembly session, she's carrying a bill that would require judicial officers, before conducting a bail hearing, to obtain information about whether that person is subject to a TDO or emergency custody order. Judicial officers would then take that information into account when making a bail determination.
“If nothing else, it would throw up a red flag that's saying, 'Hey, maybe we need to look further into where this man came from, where his family is, how can we assist him," Gardner said. "Everything is automated now. Criminal records are automated, the courts are automated, the jails are automated. Why not add this additional step?"
Byers' parents believe had a law like this existed in 2023, it could have saved their son's life.
“He’d be alive today, because if that magistrate had known that he'd been removed from the hospital illegally, because he wasn't supposed to be removed when he was under a temporary detention order, he would have gotten the help he needed to get better," Peggy Byers said.
“Anything that allows for better communication and handling of these types of situations, I think will be wonderful so another family won't go through the kind of tragedy that we've gone through," Michael Byers, Charles Byers' father, said.
The family said they appreciate the time and research Gardner has put into the bill and believe it's a measure Charles Byers would wholly support.
“He had such a strong sense of justice and fairness, and I think he would be happy that people who suffer the way he did with mental illness are being accounted for," Peggy said.
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