ouy vay

Fairfax Co. police should expand ‘less-lethal’ force options, audit says

By Neal Augenstein | 

An independent police auditor's report says Fairfax County Police should have more non-lethal weapons available. The report comes in the wake of the 2017 police shooting of Mohammad Azim Doudzai at his Herndon townhouse,. (WTOP/Dick Uliano, file)

WASHINGTON — An independent police auditor examining the police shooting of a man killed in the doorway of his Herndon, Virginia, town house last year has called for more Fairfax County police officers to be equipped with “less-lethal” weapons.

Police Chief Ed Roessler, in an WTOP interview, says those tools were used, “but unfortunately they did not end the threat, and we had to use deadly force” resulting in the death of Mohammad Azim Doudzai.

Doudzai was killed by police Jan. 16, 2017 after wounding his two brothers, and setting fire to his house. Another housemate was trapped in the third-floor bathroom of the house, as the fire spread.

The report by the county’s independent police auditor, Richard Schott — a 27-year veteran of the FBI — concluded police acted legally and appropriately, given the quickly changing scenario.

“I believe the use of force was objectively reasonable, necessary, and most likely, lifesaving,” Schott wrote in the report.

Earlier, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh determined the shooting was justified.

But in detailing the police decision-making and actions outside the home in the 13000 block of Covered Wagon Lane, Schott suggested officers were hamstrung by not having enough less-lethal weapons on hand.

According to Schott’s report, moments after a SWAT supervisor called for “less lethal” force to be deployed against Doudzai, a supplemental SWAT officer “needed to borrow a single-launch .40mm impact projectile weapon” from a patrol officer.

The SWAT officer fired the hard foam projectile at Doudzai’s abdomen, but failed to fell Doudzai.

“When called upon to fire another .40mm impact projectile, (the supplemental SWAT officer) was unable because the impact projectile weapon that he had borrowed from the patrol officer was a single shot patrol version.”

According to the report, SWAT team members who are issued the devices are issued the multi-launcher version.

“To preserve the sanctity of life to the greatest extent possible in future cases, more less-lethal options should be available to as many officers as possible,” Schott wrote.

In the  WTOP interview, Roessler suggested buying more weapons wouldn’t necessarily have changed the outcome, since first responders faced a dynamic situation.

“You had an active shooter, the house on fire and a man trapped on the third floor in a bathroom, who was being overcome by smoke inhalation,” said Roessler. “We were still trying to build the (crime) scene and have the SWAT officers take full control of the scene by relieving the patrol officers.”

Roessler said SWAT officers are currently the only unit which has received the periodic proficiency training to be assigned multi-launch projectiles.

In his recommendations, Schott specified more “less-lethal” weapons are needed in the department. The report specifically recommended the weapons be available to each shift and that all full-time SWAT officers be equipped with multi-launcher versions.

“That is something we’re increasing,” Roessler said. “Clearly it relates to a budgetary issue, but we have great support, and we are equipping our officers with the latest tools.”

In a statement, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said: “Our police officers are tasked with protecting public safety as well as the sanctity of life. I support equipping our officers with nonlethal weapons and look forward to discussing this item more during our upcoming budget season.”

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Here's a better headline "mans threatens to kill himself, so Fairfax County idiot cop shoots him

Man shot at by police after 2-hour Fairfax Co. barricade

By Rick MassimoMarch 15, 2018 5:30 pm

WASHINGTON — A man is being evaluated after he barricaded himself in his Fairfax County, Virginia, house for about two hours starting Wednesday night, and police are making an internal investigation after an officer shot at him.

Fairfax County police in the McLean Police District said in a statement that they came to the house on Hunter Road, south of Interstate 66, at about 11 p.m. Wednesday after getting a call that an armed, suicidal man had fired a shot from his gun.

Police arrived and negotiated with the man for about two hours before he left the house with the gun; an officer shot at him once, missing him, police said.

They also used an electronic weapon, beanbag rounds and a foam projectile on the man, inflicting minor injuries before taking him into custody, police said.

Police added that the Major Crimes Bureau is making a criminal investigation of the shooting, while the Internal Affairs Bureau is conducting an administrative investigation. Police Chief Edwin Roessler will have an update within 10 days “in accordance with prescribed policies,” the statement said.

The problem is a police chief who should have been fired years ago and a mind set within the police that holds the people of Fairfax County in complete contempt

  A police chase in Northern Virginia ends with a brain-damaged child and a family forever changed

·       By Petula Dvorak, The Washington Post

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She never saw it coming.

There was no boom. No crash. No crunch of metal on metal like in the movies.

It was just Filsan Duale and five kids in the minivan - four of her own plus a friend they took go-karting - heading to their home in Northern Virginia on Dec. 27. Then total blackness, and Duale opened her eyes and there was blood and broken glass everywhere.

Her 2-year-old was bleeding. The boys were all slashed up. Her 5-year-old was dazed and cut up, too. But the minivan's third row was empty. Her 12-year-old daughter was gone. "What happened? Is everyone alive? Amran? Where is Amran?" Duale said she remembers thinking.

Amran, her precocious, lively sixth-grader, was crumpled on the road, limp and scraped raw. The impact of the pickup truck T-boning them during a frenetic Fairfax County, Virginia, police chase - one that is now under investigation for the way it was conducted and the damage it has done - launched Amran through a window, to the street, where she skidded down Frying Pan Road on her face.

Her skull was fractured, her facial bones broken. Duale, 38, who was also cut up and had a broken wrist, tried to lunge toward her daughter. But the paramedics had just arrived, and they swarmed the girl amid screams and the crunch of shattered glass.

That was more than two months ago.

Now her 12-year-old, who rode her bike to school and played soccer, grunts and sighs as she spends hours learning to put one foot in front of the other again at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

The four other kids are back in school in Herndon, Virginia. They hate being in the car, Duale said, and they will all have scars for the rest of their lives. But they will recover from the physical wounds.

Amran may never be the same.

She spent two weeks in a coma. Her sixth-grade teacher came in and sat by her bedside, and painted her nails. When she woke up on Jan. 10, she was devastated that her long hair had been shaved off, but didn't understand how her nails got so pretty.

She misses school - her friends and books and classes. Amran, who wants to be a teacher, was popular and chatty and jumped rope at recess with the other girls. She loved art class, but her best subject was math.

Her new curriculum, in these long, exhausting days, covers standing, walking and concentrating. It takes everything she has to take a small beanbag from a therapist's hand while balancing on one leg. Two people have to hold her steady when she does this.

After an obstacle course of buckets, beanbags and rings that looks as though it's set up for a toddler, the tween crumples in exhaustion. "That was hard," she tells her physical therapist.

"When can I ride a bike again? I want to ride a bike!" she says, before tipping over on a mattress.

Amran's skull was fractured, but it was her brain being slammed around that did the real damage, said her doctor, Michelle Melicosta.

Amran was in terrible shape after the accident, a 3 on the Glasgow-Coma scale of 3 to 15, which means she was as low as it is possible to be without being dead.

Now Melicosta said she is "thrilled with Amran's progress."

Amran can't see out of her right eye, and she still uses a feeding tube to eat and a tracheostomy tube to breathe, but she is making progress toward getting rid of both.

Her family has been devastated, too, every shred of normalcy taken from them. During the week, Duale lives at the hospital with Amran while her husband, Moustapha Djama, who runs Loudoun County's public transportation system, manages the three other kids. On the weekends, they switch.

"It was just all for a truck. A police officer was chasing a truck that was stolen from over at the storage place," Duale told me, in a whisper, outside Kennedy Krieger's physical therapy room. "Everything in our lives is different now because of a truck."

According to Fairfax County police, the man driving the truck, Brandon Stefon Vinson, 28, rang the doorbell of a random house in Centreville, Virginia, on Dec. 27 and allegedly punched the girl who opened it.

Then he jumped into a car that had been reported stolen earlier that day in Hyattsville, Maryland, and took off, police said.

Vinson allegedly slammed into a pickup truck, assaulted that driver and took off in the truck. That's when police spotted him and began the chase.

"They went through four red lights. Four," Duale said, holding up four fingers to emphasize how long and dangerous the chase was.

"And then he hit us. I never saw him coming," she said. "The light just turned green, and I was slowly starting to roll and then, then it just went black."

Fairfax police said they are still investigating whether the chase was justified.

A couple of weeks after the crash, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors began reviewing guidelines designed to clarify when and whether police should be in a high-speed chase.

"Officers, controlling pursuit supervisors, and commanders must always balance the need for immediate apprehension with the dangers created by the pursuit, especially relating to the sanctity of preservation of all human life," reads the 45-page draft the board reviewed in January.

If they don't think the suspect is going to kill someone or himself, police should end the pursuit and get a warrant, according to the draft policy.

The county reported 134 police pursuits in 2016, up from 119 in 2015, and 115 in 2014, according to a WTOP report.

When I looked for national statistics, I found an analysis released last year by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It found that an average of 355 people were killed annually between 1996 and 2015 in crashes related to police pursuits.

Meanwhile, Amran's family is struggling with medical costs that their insurance doesn't cover. Those have soared to more than $100,000, which is why they've started a GoFundMe site. The coverage for Amran's therapy at Kennedy Krieger will run out in a couple of weeks. Then Duale will bring her home, where she'll be in charge of her daughter's progress.

Someday, Duale hopes to be able to drive again. Her husband has been driving. But every time she gets back into a car - even when she is a passenger - she flinches, shudders and remembers the blackness, then all that blood.