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Michael Woodson

Age : 54

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 08/16/2025

Location : Route 460 East and Rocky Hill Road (Route 153)

City : Nottoway

County : Nottoway

State : Virginia

Agency : irginia State Police; Amelia County Sheriff’s Office; Nottoway County Sheriff’s Office

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police following multi-agency police chase and foot pursuit

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/16/2025, 56-year-old Michael Woodson of Midlothian was shot and killed by law enforcement after a police chase that began in Amelia County and ended near Route 460 and Rocky Hill Road in Nottoway County. Virginia State Police later identified Woodson after the initial reports had withheld his name.
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Later reporting clarified an important point about how the encounter began. Virginia State Police said a trooper initially attempted to stop Woodson’s Toyota pickup because it displayed fictitious license plates on Route 360 in Amelia County at approximately 5 a.m. An Amelia County sheriff’s deputy also attempted to stop the truck while Woodson was allegedly traveling more than 100 mph in a 55-mph zone.
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The pursuit therefore involved both a specific equipment/registration basis for the attempted stop—fictitious license plates—and extremely high speed observed at the beginning of the encounter. Earlier accounts described the Amelia County deputy as initiating the stop for the speed violation, while the later VSP update additionally disclosed the trooper’s attempted stop for fictitious plates.
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Woodson continued driving away while police pursued east from Amelia County into Nottoway County. A Virginia State Police trooper and multiple Nottoway County sheriff’s deputies joined the pursuit.
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At approximately 5:20 a.m., the Toyota reached the intersection of Rocky Hill Road and eastbound Route 460. Police said the truck left the roadway and crashed into the woods. Woodson then got out and ran into the wooded area. Deputies and a Virginia State Police trooper pursued him on foot.
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Virginia State Police later alleged that Woodson displayed a firearm during the foot pursuit. Multiple law-enforcement officers then fired at him, killing him.
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A Nottoway County sheriff’s deputy suffered a gunshot wound to the hand during the encounter and was transported to a hospital. Public reporting does not establish with certainty who fired the round that struck the deputy.
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The fatal shooting was investigated by the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Richmond Field Office. Because personnel from Virginia State Police itself participated in the pursuit and fatal encounter, the investigation involved a state-police investigative unit reviewing an incident in which a VSP trooper was among the participating law-enforcement personnel.
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The publicly available later coverage identifies Woodson and adds the fictitious-license-plate allegation and police claim that he displayed a firearm, but does not identify which officers fired, how many officers fired, how many rounds were discharged, which agency or agencies fired the fatal rounds, whether Woodson fired his weapon, or whether the deputy’s hand wound resulted from Woodson’s firearm or police gunfire.
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The Nottoway County Sheriff’s Office has prior institutional experience with dangerous high-speed pursuits on the same Route 460 corridor. A Virginia Supreme Court case documents a 2004 pursuit in which Virginia State Police chased Malcolm Estes Robertson Jr. on Route 460 after an attempted speeding stop. Nottoway Deputy Charles Edward Simpson joined that pursuit and attempted to pass the pursued vehicle to force it to slow. Robertson repeatedly struck Simpson’s cruiser, and a state trooper ultimately forced Robertson off the roadway.
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That earlier case became significant litigation after Simpson was injured while officers attempted to take Robertson into custody. The litigation ultimately reached the Virginia Supreme Court in 2010 in Simpson v. Virginia Municipal Liability Pool.
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Available accountability data for the Nottoway County Sheriff’s Office are unusually thin. A public police-accountability compilation found no reported police killings by the agency during 2013-2023 but also reported that it obtained no civilian-complaint data for the department. The same dataset found that 71% of the agency’s arrests during that period involved low-level, nonviolent offenses.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Virginia State Police trooper and Nottoway County sheriff’s deputies who fired at Michael Woodson have not been publicly identified.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.12onyourside.com/2025/08/16/suspect-dead-officer-shot-following-police-pursuit-nottoway-county/
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/deputy-shot-suspect-killed-route-460-nottoway-county-aug-16-2025
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/michael-woodson-obit-august-19-2025
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/what-neighbor-heard-deadly-high-speed-chase-nottoway-virginia-aug-16-2025
https://augustafreepress.com/news/nottoway-county-suspect-dead-deputy-injured-in-shootout-following-high-speed-pursuit/
https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/supreme-court/2010/1090596.html