Thank you, Virginia Supreme Court, for doing what Fairfax County elected officials should have done

Virginia Supreme Court Takes Aim at Random License Plate Scans by Police

"The case will be remanded for a determination of whether the total components and operations of the ALPR record-keeping process provide a means through which a link between a license plate number and the vehicle's owner may be readily made," Justice Cleo Powell said.

By Michael Booth | May 04, 2018 at 02:15 PM

The Virginia Supreme Court may soon block law enforcement agencies from taking random photos of license plates using high-speed cameras and then storing that information in a database.

The court on April 26 ordered a trial judge to determine if those license plate photos, taken randomly by “automated license plate recognition” (ALPR) devices attached to the bumpers of patrol cars or to the bases of traffic signs, can be ultimately tied to specific individuals.

If that turns out to be the case, the practice may run afoul of the state’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, which restricts information law enforcement officials may gather on individuals who are not the subjects of criminal investigations, said Justice Cleo Powell, writing for the court in Neal v. Fairfax County Police Department.

“The case will be remanded for a determination of whether the total components and operations of the ALPR record-keeping process provide a means through which a link between a license plate number and the vehicle’s owner may be readily made,” Powell said.

The litigation began in May 2014 when a Virginia resident, Harrison Neal, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Fairfax County Police Department demanding to know whether one of its ALPR cameras recorded his license plate number.

Fairfax County is a largely wealthy, sprawling suburban community located just west of Washington, D.C. It is home to the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In response to Neal’s request, the Fairfax County Police Department sent Neal two photos of his license plate, taken with ALPR cameras, along with the times, dates and GPS locations where the pictures were taken, according to the court.

Neal then filed a complaint in Fairfax County Circuit Court, seeking to enjoin the Fairfax police from continuing to collect and store license plate information.

According to the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, state Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli had, in 2011, told law enforcement authorities that they could not record and store ALPR pictures without violating the Data Act unless they were involved in a specific and ongoing criminal investigation.

Neal’s lawsuit, however, alleged that police departments, particularly those in heavily populated Northern Virginia, ignored that directive and continued to collect and store that information.

Fairfax County responded that the ALPRs were engaged in both “active” and “passive” collection of license plate information, and added that license plate numbers did not amount to “personal information” about particular individuals, according to the decision.

Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith dismissed Neal’s lawsuit on summary judgment, saying that a “license plate number is not personal information.”

On Neal’s appeal, the court ordered Smith to conduct further fact-finding hearings, and suggested that if a license plate number could be traced to a specific owner or driver, the collection of those pictures may violate the Data Act.

Nearly all states, according to the ACLU, employ some sort of ALPR technology.

The Virginia ACLU issued a statement in response to the ruling.

“Everyone should be able to move about freely in public without fear of the government collecting and retaining information about their comings and goings,” the ACLU said.

“[W]e are glad that the court recognized that an information system linking this information to the name of the vehicle owner would be subject to the [Data] Act.

“The indiscriminate collection and retention of sensitive location information like ALPR data poses grave risks to civil liberties. Long-term storage of such information can create a virtual ‘time machine’ of individual movements, ripe for abuse,” the ACLU said.

Neal was represented by Edward Rosenthal of Rich Rosenthal Brincefield Manitta Dzubin & Kroeger in Alexandria, Virginia. Fairfax County Senior Assistant County Attorney Kimberly Baucom and County Attorney Elizabeth Teare represented the police department. None returned calls seeking comment.

Thank God

JUDGES SLAM BRAKES ON LICENSE-PLATE READING SYSTEM

Rule state's data-systems law protects consumers from constant surveillance

A network of cameras that captures your car license plate whenever you drive, recording times and locations, has been dealt a significant blow by the Virginia Supreme Court.

The justices have returned to a lower court a complaint against the automated license plate reader system used by the Fairfax County police department. The court wants to know whether or not police can track down an individual through a license plate.

If so, the system violates the law, the state’s Data Act, according to the court opinion.

The court said the “pictures and associated data stored in the police department’s ALPR database meet the statutory definition of ‘personal information.'”

“However, on the record before the court, we are unable to determine whether the police department’s retention and ‘passive use’ of information generated by ALPRs may be classified as an ‘information system’ governed by the Data Act. Accordingly the judgment of the circuit court granting summary judgement in favor of [the police] is reversed. The case will be remanded for a determination on whether the total components and operations of the ALPR record-keeping process provide means through which a link between a license plate number and the vehicle’s owner may be readily made.

 “If such a means exists, then the police department’s ‘passive use’ of ALPRs is not exempt from the operation of the Data Act … because the police department collected and retained personal information without suspicion of criminal activity at any level.”

While this case pertains only to a Virginia law, the Rutherford Institute, which argued for privacy for Americans in the case, called it a “blow to the police’s use of Automated License Plate Readers.”

The complaint was filed by Harrison Neal, who discovered the police were taking photos of his license plate, his car and him without any suspicion of criminal activity and storing the information in a database.

He sued to stop the police from collecting or storing information “without suspicion of any criminal activity.”

The state privacy law states information cannot be collected “unless the need for it has been established in advance,” which would rule out random collections and the use of databases.

“We’re on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, it’s focused its sights on our cars,” said John W. Whitehead, the president of the Rutherford Institute.

“By subjecting Americans to surveillance without their knowledge or compliance and then storing the data for later use, the government has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, there is no such thing as ‘innocent until proven guilty,'” he said.

Whitehead explained that in reversing the lower court’s decision, the court found that license plate readers collect personal information prohibited by Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act.

The cameras used by the system photograph up to 3,600 license tag numbers per minute, catching every passing car. They then store the tag number and the date, time and location of the photograph in a searchable database. The data is shared with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies and used to track the movements of persons in their cars.

The lawsuit by Neal cited a 2013 opinion by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that ALPR data is “personal information” that the Data Act forbids the government from collecting and storing except in connection with an active criminal investigation.

The court ruling specifically said the judges agreed with the AG’s opinion that lawmakers did not give a blanket exemption to law enforcement systems but only those dealing with active investigations and intelligence gathering relating to crimes.

“We conclude that the police department’s sweeping randomized surveillance and collection of personal information does not ‘deal with investigations and intelligence gather related to criminal activity’ and, therefore if the ALPR database is determined to be an information system, it is not exempt from the operation of the Data Act.”

These idiots have killed citizens before in car chases...want this to stop? MAKE THEM PAY FOR THE DAMAGES AND NOT THE PEOPLE OF FAIRFAX COUNTY

Fairfax Co. police roll out car-chase guidelines; some supervisors skeptical

By Dick Uliano

April 3, 2018 7:48 pm

WASHINGTON — Fairfax County, Virginia, police have introduced guidelines that spell out when officers should begin, continue or end a high-speed chase.

But some members of the county’s Board of Supervisors are concerned that the guidelines might not go far enough toward ensuring public safety.

Appearing Tuesday before the board’s Public Safety Committee, police Chief Edwin Roessler said that officers and supervisors must be sure three guidelines are met before officers pursue any suspect in a fleeing vehicle.

The officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that a driver and/or passengers have committed, have attempted to commit, are committing, or have threatened to use violence to commit a violent felony against a person; other criminal offense; or a traffic infraction.

The driver refuses to stop when given the signal to do so.

The need for immediate apprehension outweighs the danger created by the pursuit to the public, officers and offender, including passengers.

“Preservation of all human life is paramount. We’ve moved that up to the front of the page to make it very clear that human life is the key factor in making a decision,” Roessler told the committee.

Roessler told supervisors there were 149 high-speed chases by Fairfax County police officers in 2017, 134 in 2016, and 118 in 2015. He attributed the rise in police chases to an increase in the number of vehicles on county roads.

Some supervisors questioned whether the guidelines provide officers with enough specifics.

“I’m still concerned that the policy is vague,” said Supervisor John Cook, chairman of the Public Safety Committee. “… The first paragraph is anything because it’s violent crime or criminal offense or traffic infraction,” he said.

Cook described the policy’s third component as “kind of squishy.”

Roessler assured supervisors that the policy embodies best practices for police chases and said the policy includes on-track training for officers with refresher training every 36 months.

“It really comes down to how is it going to be trained, because to me this is really, really vague,” said Supervisor Pat Herrity.

Police Chief Roessler said that officers and supervisors need a high level of justification to pursue fleeing vehicles in the county, where roadways are sometimes highly congested. Roessler also said that officers should cancel any high-speed chase if they are needed to provide any emergency medical aid.

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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.

The Fairfax County Police are banking on this loop hole

Police body cameras pitched as accountability tools, but Chesterfield encounter shows departments can easily keep footage secret

·       By Ned Oliver Richmond Times-Dispatch

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Yesha Callahan’s son called distraught early on a Sunday morning: A Chesterfield County police officer had just drawn a gun on him during a minor traffic stop.

Accounts differ, but through the course of the encounter, the police said the car smelled like marijuana and initiated a search. At some point, police said the Virginia State University freshman reached for his waistband and an officer pulled his gun.

Ultimately no shots were fired, no illegal drugs were found, no traffic tickets were written, and everyone went their separate ways. But Callahan said her son was badly shaken and she, as his mom, wanted to understand what happened. So she filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the footage from the body cameras the two officers who made the stop were wearing.

 “I just assumed because there were no criminal charges, no citations, no tickets or anything, that the footage should be readily available,” she said.

It was not. The day after the Feb. 4 incident, the department declined to provide the video, citing an exemption in the state’s public records laws that allows police to keep materials from criminal investigations secret — even in cases that do not result in charges.

Callahan’s experience in Chesterfield isn’t unique in Virginia, where law enforcement agencies have broad leeway to deny requests. And advocates, news agencies and, in this case, concerned parents have found they often do.

“When they roll out these programs and they ask the public to support them, the justification is always transparency and public trust in law enforcement,” said Bill Farrar, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which has studied body camera policies of Virginia police departments. “So why would they not release footage?

“But what we have found is that they don’t.”

Across the country, law enforcement agencies have adopted different approaches to the issue, and they’re evolving quickly as more departments adopt the technology, which one study showed reduced complaints against officers by 93 percent.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department allows the public to review footage at the department as long as it’s not still part of an investigation.

Other departments have policies that specifically address use of force incidents. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel set a policy of releasing video from police shootings within 90 days of the incident.

This month, the Los Angeles Police Department introduced a new policy in which video of “critical incidents” like shootings by officers would automatically become public within 45 days, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reports that police officials had previously resisted making footage public, fearing it would hinder investigations or provide an incomplete snapshot of the event in question.

The agency overcame those concerns by allowing the police chief to withhold videos with the support of at least two of the five members of the city’s police commission.

In Virginia, state law treats body camera footage the same as every other kind of public record, said Alan Gernhardt, the executive director and senior attorney of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council.

Richmond city and Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties all have policies governing how and when body cameras are used, but none directly addresses how requests for the resulting footage will be handled, a Richmond Times-Dispatch review found.

Elsewhere in the state, a handful of Virginia departments do skew toward making video available, said Megan Rhyne, director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. She pointed to policies in Fairfax County that in January led the police chief to release footage of two U.S. Park Police officers shooting Bijan Ghaisar, a Virginia Commonwealth University graduate, at close range. The decision was regarded as unusual, particularly because the FBI, not Fairfax County authorities, was investigating the shooting.

It’s difficult to determine exactly how many requests departments receive for body camera footage and how many ultimately result in video being made public. Most departments maintain logs of FOIA requests but, in Richmond, for instance, the logs do not include information about the department’s response. And even if they did, it’s common for people to request footage that does not exist on the off chance that it might yield a recording.

Chesterfield police cited similar limitations in providing specific numbers detailing its responses, but spokeswoman Elizabeth Caroon said the department has released 55 body-worn camera videos since the county began equipping officers with the technology — most related to traffic crashes.

She estimated that the department has gotten “few requests for body-worn camera footage from incidents considered criminal.” In at least one case, she said footage was provided but that “to the best of our recollection we have denied two of these requests.”

Farrar, with the state branch of the ACLU, said his organization’s requests for footage have followed police-involved shootings and have all been refused, with departments most frequently citing FOIA exemptions that allow but do not require law enforcement agencies to withhold criminal investigative materials and personnel records.

In the case of Callahan and her son, Chesterfield police ultimately cited both exemptions.

Although the department’s records administrator initially said the department would not release the footage because it was part of a criminal investigation, Caroon, the department spokeswoman, later said in a statement that “internal investigations, including those initiated by community complaints, are exempt from FOIA and it is the department’s practice not to release information related to those investigations, as they are personnel matters.”

Asked about the varied explanations, the department said the administrator who responded denied the request because she considered it a criminal situation. After that, Callahan filed a complaint with the department, making the video part of an internal investigation in the department’s eyes.

Caroon said the encounter is prompting the department to adjust its approach to responding to similar requests in the future.

“We are adding an additional review level for these requests to ensure we are releasing those items we can release,” she said. “We are currently working with Ms. Callahan to set up a time for her to come in and view the video.”

As for the stop itself, Caroon said officers pulled the vehicle over for not making a complete stop before turning right at a red light in Ettrick, a few blocks from VSU’s campus. She said police asked if he had anything illegal on him and he reached for his waistband, ignoring two commands to stop, at which point one of the officers drew his weapon.

Callahan said her son, who declined to be interviewed for this story because he did not want to draw further scrutiny around campus, never ignored any commands and thought he was following the officers’ instructions. She also challenged that the car rolled through the stoplight and that the car smelled like marijuana in the first place, saying she believes her son and his friend, who are black, were profiled by the two officers, who are white.

A journalist who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and wrote about her and her son’s experience on The Root, where she serves as deputy managing editor, Callahan said she’s unlikely to take the department up on its offer to drive to Chesterfield to view the footage she hoped would help explain the situation.

“I’m like two-and-a-half hours away,” she said. “If you’re going to let me see the video in your office, why can’t you just send me the video wherever I’m located?”

Fairfax County Police Will Begin Wearing Body Cameras as Part of Pilot Program

By Julie Carey

More than 200 police officers across three Fairfax County, Virginia, police districts will wear body cameras starting in March as part of a six-month pilot program.

Police patrolling the Reston, Mason and Mt. Vernon districts will wear uniforms with the body cameras, which Fairfax County Police officials said will promote transparency. Fairfax County Police have been using car cameras for 10 years.

“In today’s environment, when the profession is under attack, we welcome body-worn cameras,” Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler said, “to show the community, especially here in Fairfax, that we are professional at all times.”

The new cameras will be recording anytime officers respond to a scene and during routine traffic stops. Under certain circumstances, though, people can ask that they be turned off. If a resident speaks to police to report a local neighborhood crime and wants to remain anonymous, for example, the resident could request that the camera not record.

For routine cases in which there is no criminal activity involved, the public can also ask officers to shut them off. Fairfax County Police Capt. Chantel Cochrane said that anyone can ask whether they are being recorded.

The new cameras will be introduced more than a year after the Fairfax County board delayed the program’s start date. The department spent about two years drafting its body camera policy and consulted community officials from groups such as the NAACP.

Fairfax County NAACP President Kofi Annan said that “having cameras only helps.”

The body cameras could prove beneficial for significant police-involved incidents, such as when a U.S. Park Police officer shot an unarmed man after a chase on the George-Washington Parkway in November.

After that altercation, Roessler released dashcam video. He’ll decide whether to release body camera video and said he'll do so when it’s in the public’s interest.

“We need to hold each other accountable,” Roessler said, “so if there are allegations against an officer for rudeness, we are recording. We are live.”

 

Below story in a nutshell "Morrogh declined to prosecute" end of story...where the hell is the FBI?

7

Independent police auditor releases 1st annual report

·       By Angela Woolsey/Fairfax County Times

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A Fairfax County police officer’s fatal shooting of a Herndon man in January 2017 did not violate Virginia law or department policy, the county’s independent police auditor found in a Jan. 26 report affirming the results of a Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) internal investigation.

An officer later identified as Master Police Officer Lance Guckenberger shot Mohammad Azim Doudzai, 32, on Jan. 16, 2017 to conclude a standoff where the Herndon resident barricaded himself and a 29-year-old roommate inside a burning home.

Doudzai died later that day after being transported to Reston Hospital.

“I agree with the internal findings of the FCPD that there were no legal or policy violations based on the actions of anyone involved in this incident,” Independent Police Auditor Richard Schott said in his report. “I believe the use of force was objectively reasonable, necessary, and most likely, life-saving.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh declined to prosecute Guckenberger, determining that his actions constituted justifiable homicide in a report released in May.

Schott also found that the 21-day gap between the shooting and the release of Guckenberger’s identity was “both reasonable and necessary.”

Fairfax County policy requires that the police chief publicly release the identity of officers who deploy a fatal use of force against a civilian within 10 days of the incident, with the caveat that time extensions can be requested if there is a threat to the officer’s safety.

According to Schott’s report, Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. initially chose not to reveal Guckenberger’s identity in order to conduct a safety inquiry “based on a legitimate concern” for the officer, who also obtained a temporary restraining order from a federal judge that prohibited the FCPD from releasing his name before Feb. 9, 2017.

New information “calling the officer’s safety into question” then prompted Roessler to again postpone releasing the officer’s name, Schott says.

According to the FCPD media relations bureau, a risk assessment regarding Guckenberger was not completed until Feb. 24 and found no credible threats. Roessler ultimately released the officer’s identity on Mar. 2, 2017.

“I did not create a delay,” Roessler said. “There was a threat source I needed to mitigate, and we did that. The judge issued an injunction, and then we had to resolve that, so that’s two hurdles I had to overcome.”

The police chief says that he is prohibited by law from providing more details on the nature of the potential threat.

While he agrees with the FCPD’s determination that no policy or law had been violated in Doudzai’s death, Schott recommends that the department adopt a policy requiring that each patrol shift and all full-time Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members have “less lethal” options available.

Schott’s report on the Jan. 16 Herndon shooting is the second incident report to come out of Fairfax County’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor, which was established by the Board of Supervisors in September 2016.

The first incident report concerned the use of an electronic control weapon (ECW) on a man in Falls Church and similarly found that the criminal and administrative investigations into the encounter had been properly and thoroughly conducted.

The county’s independent police auditor is required to release a public report in response to every Fairfax County police use-of-force incident that results in a death or serious injury.

The office is also obligated to publish an annual report, so Schott published his first-ever annual report online on Jan. 31.

According to the 2017 Annual Report of the Fairfax County Independent Police Auditor, the office initiated seven case reviews of incidents that occurred on or after Jan. 1, 2017, including the two that have already been completed.

Three of the case reviews, all of them dealing with allegations of excessive uses of force, were initiated in response to a public complaint.

Though the Board of Supervisors dictated that the independent police auditor publish incident reports within 60 days of a completed internal affairs bureau investigation, Schott allows that the logistics of setting up the office have been time-consuming, but he expects to be able to release incident reports more quickly going forward.

“We’re really trying to hone in on process and procedures that will help the office,” Schott said. “I think we’ll be able to run more efficiently and therefore become more productive moving forward.”

According to the annual report, Schott expects to complete the remaining incident reports from 2017 within the first half of this year, though he will also be tasked with monitoring any new cases that occur.

In addition to reviewing internal investigations, the auditor will follow the progress of the FCPD’s impending body-worn camera pilot program, along with a committee of community advocates, legal staff, and police leaders, according to Roessler.

The Office of the Independent Police Auditor is also currently examining factors behind the racial disparities reported in FCPD use-of-force incidents and anticipates that its findings will be published sometime this year.

An annual statistical report released in December by the FCPD’s internal affairs bureau found that 198 black community members were subject to force in an encounter with Fairfax County police in 2016, the same number of white people involved in use-of-force incidents even though they comprise a much smaller percentage of the county’s overall population.

While the Office of the Independent Police Auditor has not yet finished its first year of existence, Roessler says that he is pleased with the work that Schott has managed to do so far.

“The auditor has been communicating with us extremely well,” Roessler said. “We are learning a lot from him through all of this to make our department better policy-wise and serving in the community, so I fully support everything he did.”

Schott says that the office has been productive so far, particularly after the Board of Supervisors approved the addition of an administrative assistant to the office, but he has not received much of a response from the community to the published reports.

However, he has attended public forums with members of Fairfax County’s Police Civilian Review Panel, which was established in December 2016 to review citizen complaints of police misconduct and abuses of power. The panel was scheduled to conduct its first review on Jan. 4.

“I think there’s still a concern that many members of the community don’t know that the auditor position is fully staffed and that the panel is operational now,” Schott said. “I think we both have some community outreach to do.”