Virginia court
blocks reinstatement of former Fairfax County officer
A Virginia
Court of Appeals has blocked former Fairfax County police officer Wesley
Shifflett's attempt to get his job back.
Posted October
17, 2024 9:42pm EDT
Thank you FCPD, for trying to hirfe this clown back.......
The FCPD 2024 “Road Shark” Shark campaign issued nearly 35,000 citations and warnings to drivers.
....here's what the cops don't tell you, in half the cases the cops won't show up in court and more than one third of all the cases will be dismissed by the judge
Wanted Suspect Arrested After 5-Hour Barricade in Merrifield
Remeber the last guy who barricaded himself against the FCPD? Yeah, a cop who was arguing with wife on the phone....while we were paying him......shot the barricaded guy dead.
And FCPD has the budget of a small South American Nation
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The increase in violent crime in Fairfax County is among the highest in the country, according to a new report that tracked violent crimes in 2023.
D.C. saw the largest increase of any major city in the country for violent crime while Fairfax County ranked seventh in the country with an 8.7% increase in violent crimes which is a larger increase than nearby Prince George’s County and it’s a larger increase than Montgomery County, Maryland.
This is all according to a Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) report which collected homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault crime data from 69 police departments across the country for the first nine months of this year and compared crime trends to the first nine months of last year.
MCCA found that Fairfax County saw a sizeable increase in the number of rapes and aggravated assaults.
On Friday, 7News requested additional crime data from the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD).
According to FCPD, shoplifting is up 40%, assaults are up 14%, auto thefts are up 9.6% and Fairfax County police citations for offenses are up 54%.
This comes as several county leaders have downplayed the crime increases in Fairfax County in recent years by making comments like this:
“We are still the safest jurisdiction of our size all across the country,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano told 7News Reporter Nick Minock in March 2022 during an interview.
“Our residents are smart they know they are living in a county that is the safest of any jurisdiction of its size in the country!” Chair Jeff McKay told 7News Reporter Nick Minock in February 2022 during an interview.
McKay reiterated this talking point in a September 6, 2023, message to the community, saying “Fairfax County is still the safest place of its size to live in America. Keep that in mind the next time you see something concerning on NextDoor or talk to a friend or family member about national trends.”
Its called "The balls of an alley cat" welcome to the Fairfax county police
Former MPD officer sues police chief, city for defamation, wrongful termination
Tyler Timberlake is seeking over $250,000 in damages
BY: DEENA WINTER - DECEMBER 22, 2023 4:49 PM
A former Virginia police officer who was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in January despite being involved in a highly publicized excessive force case is now suing Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara and the city for terminating him.
Tyler Timberlake alleges in the lawsuit that the Minneapolis police chief has repeatedly lied about what he knew about Timberlake’s past before signing off on his hiring.
Just days after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd by pressing his knee into his neck on a south Minneapolis street, Timberlake, then a Fairfax County police officer, made headlines when he repeatedly used a stun gun on a disoriented, unarmed Black man wandering a residential street. Body camera video shows Timberlake jamming his knee into the man’s back and shoulder while the man said he couldn’t breathe.
Timberlake was later acquitted by a jury of assault and battery, was not formally disciplined and was reinstated to his job.
After the Reformer first reported on Timberlake’s hiring in April, O’Hara released a statement saying he was “extremely concerned” about the hire and ordered a thorough investigation into MPD’s background checks and hiring processes.
Timberlake alleges the chief and city caused the loss of his reputation and career after they “induced” him to resign his job as a Virginia police officer and take a job at MPD, assuring him that the use-of-force case wouldn’t affect his employment.
But he says shortly after his hiring came to light in the press, “those assurances turned to smoke.” He was put on limited duty status and later fired while still on probation, when he had no civil service or union protections.
Timberlake is suing for defamation and wrongful termination, seeking over $250,000 in damages, plus attorney’s fees, reinstatement, back pay and compensatory damages. The suit says he has no job and no prospects, with “his reputation in tatters.”
MPD and O’Hara deferred comment to the City Attorney’s Office, which released a statement saying it is reviewing the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that “in O’Hara’s panicked efforts to evade responsibility for Timberlake’s hiring, he told a series of lies to the public, including that Timberlake had failed to disclose, or had misrepresented, the incident in Virginia during the hiring process, that O’Hara did not know about the incident in Virginia, (and) that something was wrong with the MPD hiring process because it had failed to identify the incident in Virginia.”
The suit says MPD Officer Craig Johnson fully investigated the Virginia incident, and wrote a summary of his findings in his background report, which was given to hiring personnel.
Timberlake said he disclosed the incident on his MPD application and during “every phase of the overall onboarding process,” offering to provide all video and audio footage of it.
Before being offered a job, he had a final interview on Nov. 8, 2022, in Minneapolis, where he met with O’Hara, Deputy Chief Troy Schoenberger, Chief of Staff Christopher Gaiters, and Human Resources Representative Heather Rende. They discussed the Virginia incident “in great deal,” according to the suit.
Timberlake said he asked O’Hara whether he had any concerns about how he would be treated because of the Virginia case, and O’Hara indicated “he did not care about the prior critical incident, and that if Timberlake is doing the right thing and meeting community expectations, he would not have any problems from the chief.”
Timberlake says he was then offered the job less than 15 minutes after the interview ended, while he was walking to his car. He resigned his job and moved to Minnesota, where he began the job in January.
O’Hara has previously said it was his second day on the job when he sat in on Timberlake’s interview as an “observer,” not a “participant.”
The Reformer first inquired about the hiring on April 12, after which Timberlake alleges O’Hara “began to change his story after media scrutiny,” and wrote in an April 19 internal email that he “was completely and totally unaware of his history.”
Timberlake wrote a May 15 letter to Mayor Jacob Frey, O’Hara and Human Resources Chief Nikki Odom accusing O’Hara of defaming him, and asked for an investigation into the matter.
On July 5, he was summoned to a meeting with Schoenberger and two lieutenants, and was told he was being terminated but not given a reason. Timberlake says he asked if his termination was related to political pressure, and Schoenberger said, “I’m not going to answer that.”
Months later, the city sent Timberlake a memo by O’Hara outlining his reason for the termination, saying Timberlake “engaged in conduct that would not meet our standards when he stepped into another officer’s call, failed to de-escalate, and used unreasonable force during a critical incident.”
O’Hara’s memo said he didn’t know about the conduct prior to viewing a video of it that wasn’t revealed during the hiring process. The chief wrote that he also took into account “concerns raised by community members following the media’s publication of the video.”
Timberlake alleges O’Hara harmed his reputation and defamed him multiple times by implying he concealed the Virginia incident during his background investigation. And he claims O’Hara disclosed information to the public that is supposed to remain private under state law.
He’s seeking compensation for loss of employment, mental distress, humiliation, embarrassment and an inability to find a job afterward “even at police departments that previously expressed interest in working with him.”
Timberlake also claims the city violated the Minnesota Whistleblower Act and he’s entitled to reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages and the expungement of adverse employment records.
Timberlake gives a detailed description of how and why he responded to the Virginia man the way he did, noting that he was called to a “high-crime area” frequented by a violent felon and PCP user with warrants out for his arrest. Timberlake admits he mistook another man for the felon, and that the man was later found to be under the influence of PCP and cocaine.
After being acquitted by a jury of three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery, Timberlake was reinstated as a police officer in Fairfax County. Their internal affairs unit found he violated their de-escalation policy, and issued a written reprimand. Timberlake appealed the finding, and it was reduced to an oral reprimand, which is not considered formal disciplinary action.
In the lawsuit, Timberlake also says he held the man down by his back and shoulder, not his neck, and disagreed with Chauvin’s “knee-on-neck restraint tactic” on Floyd.
Of course
Surprise,
surprise Sgt. Wesley Shifflett, the Fairfax
County cop who gunned down a man for s shop lifting has been found not guilty despite
the fact that Shifflett’s body camera video showing the moments after the
shooting, where Shifflett told a couple of officers how he told Johnson to show
his hands during the chase. However, Shifflett had actually yelled for Johnson
to “get to the ground.”
Killer cop to go on trial
Fairfax
County cop Wesley Shifflett, charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless
discharge of a weapon in the killing of 37-year-old unarmed Timothy McCree
Johnson over a pair of sunglasses on Feb. 22, 2023 is finally going before a
court of law.
Shifflett
and another Fairfax County cop chased Johnson, during the night, on foot after
receiving a report from security guards that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from
a Nordstrom department store in Tysons Corner Center.
Shifflett told
another cop that he saw Johnson reaching for a weapon in his waistband but no
such weapon was found.
A woman is dead after a welfare check by Fairfax County Police.
A woman is dead after a welfare check
by Fairfax County Police.
A cop knocked on the woman's door, the
woman answered the door, and immediately slammed it in the cops face. The cop
kept knocking. A few minutes later, the woman answered the door armed with a
knife and began slashing at the cop hitting him in the face.
So, of course, he shot her death.
No punches, wrestling, stun guns or batons.
Oh give him his job back, what's one more gun crazy prick on the force going to do to make things worse?
Former FCPD officer seeks to get charges in fatal Tysons shooting dismissed
By Angela Woolsey
Published September 9, 2024 at 2:30PM|Updated September 10, 2024 at 12:51AM
The Fairfax County Courthouse (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
The former Fairfax County Police Department officer who fatally shot a D.C. man suspected of shoplifting two pairs of sunglasses from Nordstrom at Tysons Corner Center might not face a trial after all.
Defense attorneys for Wesley Shifflett filed a motion in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Friday (Sept. 6) seeking to “quash” the grand jury indictment that charged the former police sergeant with involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm for killing Timothy Johnson on Feb. 22, 2023.
Shifflett’s attorneys hope to convince a judge to dismiss the indictment at a hearing on Sept. 16, which would eliminate the need for a trial if the motion is granted.
“That’s going to be our case,” Simms Showers LLP partner Caleb Kershner confirmed to FFXnow, though he couldn’t share details of the argument since it contains information presented to the grand jury that’s sealed by a court order.
The defense team also filed motions on Friday that would exclude mentions of Johnson being unarmed, an expert witness called by prosecutors and evidence related to the police pursuit that preceded the shooting from the potential jury trial.
Previously scheduled for Sept. 16, the trial has been pushed back a day to allow for the additional hearing.
Per court records, the motions were filed around 2:45 p.m. after a roughly three-hour-long hearing where Judge Randy Bellows prohibited prior incidents of Shifflett drawing his gun from being discussed at the trial, while allowing evidence related to Johnson’s conviction of a misdemeanor assault in 2004.
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Barry Zweig argued that the jury should know about three incidents on Feb. 17, 2022, Oct. 25, 2022 and Feb. 10, 2023 where Shifflett pointed his gun at an unarmed person while investigating shoplifting reports at Tysons Corner Center.
“These incidents highlight Shifflett’s attitude towards those who are suspected of committing non-violent, low-level crime at the Tyson’s Corner Mall,” Zweig wrote in his motion. “On at least one occasion Shifflett drew his firearm on an individual who had been engaged in absolutely no criminal conduct.”
On Feb. 10, 2023, Shifflett pointed his gun at a passenger in the vehicle of a man who allegedly took a pair of sunglasses from a store, tried them on and then returned them. Shifflett wrote in a July 6, 2023 incident report that he pulled his gun when the passenger “began reaching in her waistband when she was instructed not to.”
Prosecutors also brought up a Sept. 25, 2022 incident involving an alleged theft at Nordstrom, but according to Kershner’s team, the officer in question was a different sergeant with the last name of Shifflett.
In his motion, Zweig noted that all of the targeted individuals were Black. However, he said at Friday’s hearing that he would leave that information — and the implication that racism played a role in the shooting — out of a trial to avoid creating unfair prejudice.
Even if race isn’t mentioned, Bellows said the prior incidents had “negligible” value in helping prosecutors prove their case, noting that they didn’t involve use-of-force or criminal allegations against Shifflett.
“I can’t make the assumption the Commonwealth was making that an officer chasing a fleeing individual who’s engaged in shoplifting should not pull a gun on these individuals,” Bellows said, adding that “redacting race would reduce, not eliminate prejudice.”
Kershner welcomed the decision, calling prosecutors’ argument “largely speculative in nature.”
“I think the judge rightly pointed out that you would have to show all the good acts and all the times that force wasn’t showed on larceny victims,” he said. “Even the Commonwealth admitted when they got up to argue that race really shouldn’t be an issue here, and I was glad to see they said that, because I think that’s absolutely the right thing.”
A spokesperson for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said they’re unable to comment because the case is ongoing.
Prosecutors argued Johnson’s assault conviction in 2004 should be excluded from the trial because of “the substantial time gap and the lack of relevance in circumstances.”
According to Zweig, Johnson was attempting to steal a vehicle at the home of an ATF agent in Maryland on May 19, 2003. When the agent confronted him, drawing his gun while standing behind the vehicle, Johnson backed up. The agent jumped out of the vehicle’s way and fired his gun, hitting Johnson.
Johnson was initially charged with first-degree attempted murder, though it’s unclear why the charge was later reduced. He served three years in prison as a juvenile, Zweig confirmed at the hearing.
Prosecutors also sought to exclude a 2019 involuntary manslaughter conviction stemming from a crash in Maryland. Johnson was reportedly intoxicated and speeding when he hit another vehicle, killing the driver, Zweig told the court.
“DWI resulting in death…is an act of recklessness rather than intentional violence,” Zweig said in his motion. “As such, it does not involve the kind of deliberate, aggressive conduct that would typically characterize the victim’s behavior in a situation where self-defense might be justified.”
However, defense attorney Matthew Noel argued both cases showed a “propensity for violence” and a tendency to flee from situations involving the police, suggesting Shifflett’s claim that he shot Johnson out of fear for his own safety “was reasonable.”
Bellows deemed the circumstances of the 2004 assault conviction similar enough to justify inclusion in a trial, but he said the DWI posed more of a challenge, stating that he will issue a decision this week.
About the Author
•
Angela Woolsey
Angela Woolsey is the site editor for FFXnow. A graduate of George Mason University, she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Fairfax County Times before joining Local News Now as the Tysons Reporter editor in 2020.
Can flawed cops flee their records?
The Sonya Massey killing in Illinois raises the question again. Here’s where things stand on the vetting of new hires in Minneapolis.
By Editorial Board
Star Tribune
AUGUST 10, 2024 AT 7:00PM
The fatal shooting of a Black woman in her Illinois home by a white cop she had called for help once again highlights the critical importance of officer vetting. Turns out the policeman involved had a history of dubious behavior at previous jobs. Why was he hired at all?
It demonstrates once again the importance of thorough, comprehensive investigations of officer applicants’ backgrounds before that person is offered a law enforcement badge.
Here’s what happened: Sean Grayson, a deputy sheriff in Sangamon County, responded to a 911 call from Sonya Massey, who had reported a prowler. Grayson entered Massey’s home near Springfield and noticed she had a pot on her stove. Concerned that she might throw whatever was in that pot at him, he fired the three shots that killed her.
Massey, 36, had a history of mental illness, but the officer body cam video did not show that she acted aggressively during the interaction. That video evidence prompted Grayson’s boss, Sheriff Jack Campbell, to denounce the deputy’s behavior and fire him. Now Grayson, 30, faces three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
Campbell had hired Grayson in May 2023 to work for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department even though Grayson had been dismissed from the Army for the first of two drunken-driving convictions in which he had a weapon in his car and though he‘d frequently changed jobs.
“Six jobs in four years should have raised a red flag. And you would ask why he wasn’t hired full time in any of those [part-time] jobs,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, told the Associated Press. “Combined with a track record of DUIs, it would be enough to do further examination as to whether or not he would be a good fit.”
Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, called for Sheriff Campbell, a Republican, to resign, saying that Campbell had “failed” by hiring the officer in the first place. On Friday, the sheriff did so.
Minneapolis has had its own difficulties with officer histories — most prominently former officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged and later convicted of killing George Floyd in 2020. Previous incidents of misconduct were revealed in Chauvin’s record.
More recently, an officer was ”separated“ from the Minneapolis Police Department in 2023, just seven months after being hired. Tyler Timberlake had been accused of assaulting an unarmed Black man three years ago when he worked for a police department in Fairfax County, Va., and was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery, but a Virginia jury ultimately found him not guilty. Last year, Fairfax County settled a lawsuit with the victim for $150,000.
Now Timberlake is suing the city of Minneapolis for defamation, arguing that comments made by Police Chief Brian O’Hara are preventing him from finding work.
O’Hara said he could not comment specifically on the Timberlake case because it is in litigation. But in an interview with an editorial writer, he said that the MPD vetting process has been overhauled since he joined the department in 2022 and that the hiring manual has been updated with stronger investigation guidance for the first time in 15 years.
He said that applicants now are subject to more scrutiny and more comprehensive investigations, not only regarding convictions but also the type and number of accusations previously made about them. O’Hara also said the information about potential officers is now being reviewed by additional decisionmakers in the department.
The MPD sworn force has 200 fewer officers than is authorized and is now training and recruiting to hire more. It and other police departments — if they don’t already — should be using tools like the National Decertification Index as they make choices. NDI is a national registry of police officers whose law enforcement credentials have been revoked due to misconduct. And there is guidance both in the rules of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training on officer eligibility for a license and in the 2017 federal report “Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer.”
That study states that “recruitment and hiring play a major role in shaping how police agencies develop, grow, and ultimately succeed … there are few major issues confronting policing today that do not stem from recruitment and hiring on some level.”
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Yeah, these clowns are worth every penny we pay them
Crimes against people, property increased in Fairfax County by 25%, data shows
Oui Vay
RESTON, Va. (7News) — Fairfax County police are looking for a woman who escaped arrest while she was being handcuffed, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
The escape happened Tuesday around 8 p.m. in the block of 11975 Bowman Towne Drive in Reston, Virginia.
Well, surprise, anotyher drunk Fairfax County Cop
.
Officer Justin Faison, who is assigned to the Mount Vernon
District, was arrested on DUI charges after a two-vehicle crash on Route 50
near South Manchester Street in Seven Corners.
Seven people who were in the other vehicle were taken to a
nearby hospital and treated for minor injuries.
The police department said that Faison was off-duty and was
driving his personal vehicle at the time of his arrest.
Faison, who has been a sworn officer with the department
since 2022, was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an
Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.
FCP is alleged to have covered up a sex trafficking ring
In case you forgot, former Fairfax County police chief at Rossler is a defendant in a lawsuit that alleges that he helped cover up a sex trafficking ring in which the cops got free sex from the victims, trafficked women, in exchange for not shutting the ring down
We made a mistake, we reprinted a story about a transgendered man who was killed by the Fairfax County police and accidently
posted a photo of this young man....we're like really, really really sorry
A transgender man was in mental distress. Police wound up killing him.
A transgender man was in mental distress. Police wound up killing him.
The parents of Jasper Aaron Lynch, shot by a Fairfax County officer in 2022, recall his years of emotional turmoil and fatal encounter with police in their home.
A transgender man was in mental distress. Police wound up killing him.
The parents of Jasper Aaron Lynch, shot by a Fairfax County officer in 2022, recall his years of emotional turmoil and fatal encounter with police in their home.
By Tom Jackman
June 7, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Kathy, Patrick and Tory Lynch pose for a portrait holding a photo of their son and twin brother, Aaron, at their home in McLean, Va. Aaron was shot and killed by a Fairfax County police officer on July 7, 2022. (Moriah Ratner for The Washington Post)
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When they were 3 years old, the Lynch twins were playing with their nanny on rocks in Great Falls Park, near McLean, Va., when one of them suddenly declared, “I’m a boy!” The nanny laughed it off. But his family says the child, who had been assigned female at birth, was offering an early hint that those around him didn’t perceive his true identity.
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This struggle would continue into early adulthood, when he began telling people that he was transitioning. He took the name Jasper Aaron Lynch, or Aaron, as he liked to be called.
Friends, loved ones, teachers and neighbors said Aaron was an exceptionally smart youth, capable of using logic to outargue almost anyone. He was widely read in philosophy, theology and spirituality. He wrote poetry, was a straight-A student and made friends easily, his family said.
But people not recognizing his gender brought on bouts of extreme sadness, his family said. He was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, a condition often brought on by trauma that can cause a person to feel disconnected from their sense of self, a feeling that their external presence is not them, experts say. He regularly saw a therapist and participated in mental health programs.
Then, on the evening of July 7, 2022, his family said, Aaron, 26, experienced a psychotic episode — which they think was the culmination of his years of mental health struggles — and was fatally shot by a Fairfax County officer who had been called to help.
“When you’re misgendered,” his mother, Kathy Lynch, said in April in the family’s first interview since the shooting, “it becomes a daily trauma of not being seen.”
When Fairfax police officers arrived at the family home that night, Aaron, 5-foot-5 and about 140 pounds, ran toward them inside the house, wielding a wine bottle “like a hatchet,” according to an investigative report released in April by the Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney. The report says that one officer tackled Aaron while another fired four shots at him. When Aaron got off the floor, the officer fired a shot point blank into his neck, killing him, police body-camera footage shows.
Virginia police release video of Jasper Lynch shooting
2:24
Video shows a Fairfax County police officer shooting and killing Jasper Aaron Lynch, 26, on July 7, 2022. Lynch was experiencing a mental-health crisis. (Video: Fairfax County Police Department)
In releasing an account of the shooting nearly two years after it occurred, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve T. Descano said his office had determined that the deadly force was justified. Fairfax police are returning the officer to duty. The department said it has given all officers additional training on handling calls for help involving mentally unstable people and has improved the availability of mental health clinicians to assist with such calls.
Descano’s office declined to comment on the shooting beyond the investigative report.
The sudden loss of Aaron devastated his parents. Kathy Lynch and her husband, Patrick, a retired energy and finance lawyer, said they are preparing to file a lawsuit against the county over their son’s death.
“I know he’s sitting here, like, ‘Mom, do something,’ and I don’t know what to do,” Kathy said. “The only thing we have is a lawsuit. But what else?”
“If we can wave a magic wand,” her husband said, it would be to have mental health clinicians available to help police around-the-clock. “To know that somebody in our situation … can get somebody qualified,” Patrick said. “If somebody said, ‘You can get that,’ that’s all I want.”
“So other families don’t have to face this,” Kathy said.
‘Tremendous shame and anger’
Fairfax police said they have improved their mental health training and staffing since the shooting. The entire department has now been trained in a program called Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics, or ICAT, which teaches officers how to deal with volatile situations in which a person in crisis does not have a gun, Capt. Joanna Culkin said.
About one-third of the department had such training as of March 2023, according to an independent report. In addition, 44 percent of officers have received crisis-intervention training, which provides more in-depth guidance on handling people who are experiencing mental health problems, Culkin said.
Also, Fairfax police now have eight officers on call around-the-clock, one of whom is supposed to join a mental health clinician from the county’s Community Services Board as a “co-responder” team for emergency calls. No clinician was available when the Lynches made the second of two 911 calls on the night their son was shot, and none of the three officers involved in the incident had received ICAT training, according to a report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a policing think tank.
Fairfax responded to 14,653 calls for mental health service in 2023, according to police statistics, but the department did not track how many of those had a clinician accompanying officers.
Aaron and his fraternal twin sister were born in March 1996. Their older brother, Will, had been born nearly three years earlier. Aaron wore boys’ clothes, short hair and baseball caps and dressed as Batman for Halloween, his mother said.
His parents didn’t know about his exchange with the nanny when he was 3, but he later told his mother that he remembered “tremendous shame and anger because he was laughed at.” The nanny told Aaron he was being silly, but the moment stuck with him, and Kathy said that Aaron later thought he “slowly just started to dissociate” from his male identity.
Aaron graduated from the Potomac School in McLean and went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, experimenting with drugs and struggling in school, which stunned his parents, Kathy said. He took a year’s leave, then transferred to Smith College, enrolling in a gender studies class and meeting other transgender and nonbinary students.
Patrick Lynch, left, with Kathy Lynch and their son Aaron Lynch in an undated family photograph. (Family photo)
His family supported Aaron and found him a therapist who was familiar with transgender issues. At age 20, his parents said, he began transitioning by having top surgery, which involves removing breast tissue and creating a masculine or nonbinary appearance to the chest. But he remained unhappy at home and eventually moved to Boston, where his brother lived. There, he began a relationship with a woman that, his parents said, ended after several months.
“He felt connected,” Kathy said of that relationship, “and, for the first time in his life, seen for all that he was.”
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In spring 2022, Aaron moved back in with his parents and attended college remotely. Patrick had recently retired, and in July that year, he and Kathy planned to drive to Colorado for a vacation. While they were traveling, they learned that Aaron’s former romantic partner in Boston had died, and they offered to come home. “I do not want you to turn around,” his mother recalled him saying. “I’m fine. I’m grieving.”
“He was adamant,” she said.
On the morning of July 7, with his parents away, Aaron didn’t show up for his therapy session. The therapist, who was very concerned, notified the Lynches. Aaron’s twin sister, Tory Lynch, who lives in New York, said she texted Aaron, and “I got some type of nonsensical text. I was like, this is bad.” She booked an Acela train ticket to D.C. with her boyfriend and then spoke with Aaron by phone.
“It was like he was kind of aware that he was losing his mind,” she said. “You could see the decline basically as the day went on.”
Tory asked a friend to go check on Aaron. Patrick and Kathy, in the Rocky Mountains by then, decided to head home. Tory’s friend arrived at the Lynches’ home in McLean, and when Aaron slammed a phone charger into the ground, the friend called 911.
Kathy was also on the phone — it was the first time, she said, she had to involve authorities over Aaron’s mental health. She said she told a Fairfax 911 call-taker: “I can’t have just regular police officers. I need people who really understand mental health. I think what’s happening to my son is he’s having a mental breakdown, like a psychotic break.” She recalled, “He’s asking for help, and I just said he’s never been like this before.”
Transgender people are more than twice as likely as the population at large to have experienced serious mental health struggles such as depression, according to a Washington Post-KFF poll conducted in 2022. Medical providers say this is likely a product of the social stigma.
Around 7:25 p.m., three officers and a mental health clinician arrived at the home, in the 6900 block of Arbor Lane, but Aaron had vanished. The Lynches gave police permission to enter the house, but officers couldn’t find him inside or in the neighborhood, which was searched by Officer Edward K. George, then a 10-year member of the force. The police and clinician eventually left.
Aaron’s twin sister, Tory, holds a photo of herself, left, and Aaron at their childhood home in McLean. (Moriah Ratner for The Washington Post)
About 8:30 p.m., Tory and her boyfriend arrived at Arbor Lane. By then, she said, Aaron had taken framed artworks from upstairs and thrown them to the downstairs foyer. Her brother was asking about people from high school, and “he just seemed completely gone. And I backed out the door. … And as I’m leaving out the door, Aaron calls out to me, and I turn around. And the last words he ever said to me were, ‘Call 911.’ And I said, ‘That’s what we’re going to do.’”
Tory said her brother seemed scared, and “I think back to when we were in preschool and you’re just told, ‘When you’re in danger, call 911.’”
‘Are my parents here?’
From the family RV in Colorado, Kathy reached the clinician who had visited the house earlier that evening and declined to return. She said the clinician told her that officers trained in crisis intervention would be dispatched.
Officers Nicholas J. Kirsch and Kyoung S. Pak, along with Officer George, were sent to the Lynches’ home, and they met with Tory outside. The three officers discussed possibly taking Aaron into custody and having him committed to a mental health facility. Tory agreed, saying she hoped her brother would voluntarily go with them.
The foyer of the home of Patrick and Kathy Lynch, where officers encountered Aaron on the evening he was killed. (Moriah Ratner for The Washington Post)
The officers entered the darkened foyer shortly before 9 p.m., and almost immediately, Aaron appeared, holding a decorative wooden mask and a wine bottle, police body-camera footage shows. The officers didn’t approach Aaron but called out to him. “Are my parents here?” Aaron asked. The officers told Aaron that he wasn’t in trouble and reminded him that he had asked for 911 to be called, the video footage shows.
Pacing back and forth, Aaron slammed the mask on a table, causing two of the officers to unholster their Tasers. The officers repeatedly told Aaron to put the mask down, but instead, he hurled it at them. Pak fired his Taser at Aaron, but it either didn’t completely strike him or had no effect, the body-camera video shows.
Next, Aaron raised the wine bottle and started to make a chopping motion, the video shows. Then he ran toward the front door, where Kirsch was standing. Kirsch fired his Taser, but Aaron kept coming.
“He came running straight toward the front door,” Kirsch told a supervisor minutes later, according to his body-camera footage, “at which point I lowered my shoulder into him and tackled him to the ground.” In his report, Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney, said that repeated viewing of the incident revealed that Aaron dropped the bottle before making contact with Kirsch, but in the darkness, the officers couldn’t see that.
George, standing to the side of Kirsch, told investigators that he thought Aaron posed a danger to his fellow officer, so he fired four shots as Aaron neared Kirsch. George had left his Taser in his cruiser, a police auditor report stated. When Aaron started to stand up and move toward the door, the video shows, George shot him in the neck at close range.
Remnants of evidence where police shot and killed Aaron in the foyer of the Lynches' home. (Moriah Ratner for The Washington Post)
The auditor’s report said George’s failure to have his Taser on him “was identified as a clear policy violation” by the internal affairs unit, but the auditor did not say what, if any, discipline George received for that. Fairfax police declined to make George, Kirsch or Pak available for comment, and the department did not have further comment on the shooting. The head of the Fairfax chapter of the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents Fairfax officers, did not return a call seeking comment.
Descano described the collision with Kirsch as “a struggle” and said it was “not unreasonable” for George to think that Aaron still held the wine bottle and could have bludgeoned Kirsch with it, or broken the bottle and stabbed Kirsch. “I conclude that Officer George acted in an objectively reasonable manner,” Descano wrote in April.
The Lynches said that they met with Descano in December 2022 and that the prosecutor told them he would review the case closely. Then, the couple said, they didn’t hear from him again until April, when he called to say he would be clearing George of any criminal liability. The Lynches said Descano told them he had hired an outside use-of-force expert to review the case, which delayed his ruling for 21 months.
At a memorial service, mourners recalled Aaron’s sense of humor and brilliant intellect.
“Aaron taught me much more than any therapy books ever have,” his therapist, Cara Segal, said. “Aaron taught me that if we are not telling the truth — the deepest and hardest layers of our own personal truth — then what version of oneself is being loved, anyway?”
I’m asking for a friend
I’m asking for a friend….is Jane a woman or one of those people who
decided not to be a guy because it was a mistake at birth……not that there is
anything wrong with that.
Anyway, jane’s got itself a hysterical sense of humor, listen to this. At
the end of 2013, she was transferred to Internal Affairs as an investigator.
“It was a tough job but important. I realized that we make mistakes; but as an
agency, we have to police ourselves – and that’s critical.”
We're hiring! (of course they are, no one want to work there)
Fairfax County Police
College students! Don't miss our #FCPD Hiring Expo! Get hands-on with our hiring process, talk to detectives, and practice the Physical Abilities Test. Submit
Before
you throw your life away consider the other benefits.
You WILL get divorced
Shift work
You’ll be widely disliked by the community you work in
You will likely become an alcoholic after retirement
You will probably die from a heart attack a few years after you retire
So these two cops decided to have a social chit chat at the side of a busy road in the dark. The dummy swung open his car door causing a driver to ram into the door with her car.
Here's a thought ...hold your goddamn gossip session off the road.
Its a mindset in Fairfax County
Fairfax County, VA
– A Fairfax
County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Nicholas Vaszil, has been arrested for the
assault of an inmate at the Adult Detention Center in January.
The son of bitch got away with it
A cop who fatally shot a McLean man in 2022 violated Fairfax County
Police Department policies. Fairfax County Independent Police Auditor Richard
Schott affirmed the finding. The cops, three of them, shot 26-year-old Jasper
Aaron Lynch at his home on July 7, 2022. The primary culprit is a cop named
Edward George — violated other policies by not turning on his body-worn camera
during the first of two calls to the house on Arbor Lane and not carrying his
taser during either response, according to Schott’s report. George had left his
taser “in the trunk of his patrol car”
Lynch’s sister and a family friend called the police twice that night
seeking assistance for Lynch, who was experiencing a mental health crisis.
During the second call, one officer deployed a taser twice after Lynch threw a
“wooden tribal mask” at him, according to the report.
Four seconds later, another officer tased Lynch when he began approaching
while carrying a wine bottle, which he then dropped. George fired four shots
with his handgun, followed by a fifth into Lynch’s neck after Lynch collided
with the second officer.
Lynch died at the scene. As described in Schott’s report, the encounter
unfolded within a minute of the officers entering the home at 8:52 p.m.
The camera footage indicated the young
man was on the ground and unarmed when George fired the final, fatal
shot.
George still has a job. The kid is still dead.
The Fairfax County Police are fucking idiots.....read this....
Anthony Santaniello Migrant charged with child sex crimes in Virginia, released twice before ICE arrest
by: Tannock Blair
WASHINGTON (WRIC) — A man charged with child sex crimes and
was released on bond twice by Fairfax County law enforcement has reportedly
been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Deportation officers reportedly arrested a 30-year-old
Honduran national at his residence in Bladensburg, Maryland, on Monday, April
15, and served him with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice
immigration judge.
“The Honduran national unlawfully entered the United States on
an unknown date, at an unknown location, without being inspected, admitted or
paroled by a U.S. immigration official,” a release from ICE reads.
According to authorities, the man had previously been arrested
by the Fairfax County Police Department on July 5, 2023, when he was charged
with felony carnal knowledge of a child 13-14 years of age.
ICE reportedly placed an immigration detainer against the
suspect with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on July 6, 2023.
An immigration detainer, according to authorities, is a
request from ICE to other law enforcement agencies “to notify ICE as early as
possible before a removable noncitizen is released from their custody.”
“The Fairfax County Adult Detention Center did not honor ERO
Washington, D.C.’s immigration detainer and released the noncitizen from
custody on a $10,000 bond on July 10, 2023,” the release from ICE reads.
The Honduran national was arrested again by Fairfax County
Police on Feb. 22, 2024, and he was charged with the following:
• Two additional
counts of felony carnal knowledge of a child 13-14 years of age: without force
• Two counts of
felony indecent liberties with a child less than 15 years of age
“Later that day, the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center
released him from custody before ERO Washington could file an immigration
detainer against him,” the release from ICE reads.
“The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has consistently told
Immigration and Customs Enforcement that an administrative detainer is not
sufficient to hold an inmate past their release date in the Fairfax County
Adult Detention Center,” a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office told 8News.
“The Sheriff’s Office has informed ICE that a judicial immigration
warrant is needed to effectuate a transfer to ICE custody. This ensures that
the FCSO only detains individuals with lawful authority. Despite ICE’s knowledge of this, they
declined to obtain a judicial warrant for this individual.”
The spokesperson said the inmate was released on bond on all
charges after both arrests.
“The individual in question was twice released on bond on all
charges by a Fairfax County judge,” the spokesperson said. “At the time the
inmate was ordered to be released, the Sheriff’s Office had no outstanding
judicial warrants on file. He was therefore released pursuant to the court
order as was required by law.”
8News reached out to the Fairfax County Police Department for
comment on Friday, April 26, but has not yet received a response.
Following the arrest on April 15 by deportation officers,
authorities reported the man will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of
his removal proceedings.
“This Honduran noncitizen stands accused of some very serious
crimes and represented a threat to the children of the Washington, D.C. area,”
said ERO Washington, D.C. Field Office Director Liana Castano. “When local
jurisdictions have policies in place which prohibit them from cooperating with
ICE ERO and from honoring our lawfully issued detainers and administrative
warrants, they put the suspects, law enforcement officers, and most
importantly, the members of our local communities at risk.”
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fairfax County cops gun down another one
Wesley G. Shifflett of the Fairfax County Police has been decertified and fired for gunning down a citizen he and another cop named James F. Sadler had been caught harassing and cornering Timothy McCree Johnson, a 37-year-old Black man whom they decided was guilty of walking while black in Fairfax County. The department justified the murder by cop by claiming that Timothy Johnson had stolen a pair of sunglasses, a misdemeanor offense, ran from the two cops. So, basically, he was killed for running away with stolen sunglasses, and considering the fatal bullet wound to the chest they gave, running away from those two probably was the best option he had. He was gunned, by both cops, down in a wooded aware out of public view.
opps!
Posted the wrong picture in the last posting.
That isn't professional Chinese American Wilson Lee, it was Tou Thao, the cop who stood by and watched as another cop murdered a suspect by cutting off his air.
How dare you sign your own name?
Those zany and unpredictable corrupt
cops at the Fairfax County Police are at it again. They appointed, in my
opinion, a token Chinese American to a position of influence and then got upset
when the token Chinese American acted like a Chinese American…welcome to a day
in the life of the corrupt Fairfax County Police
A Virginia police chief sent an
email faulting the director of the Fairfax County's police academy for signing
graduation certificates in a language other than English and requested the
documents be signed again.
Maj. Wilson Lee, who is Chinese
American, and probably very lonely within that baston of angry white people, has
signed the ceremonial documents in Chinese with his legal given name, Lee
Wai-Shun, since taking over the Fairfax County Police Criminal Justice Academy
over a year ago.