“The supremacy argument could develop into a trial,” Descano said. “So we are ready to go to trial now.”
How federal agents can kill someone and avoid prosecution
Despite the video of both officers firing into a vehicle that was slowly moving away from them, Ghaisar’s slaying did not inspire broad protests as other police-involved killings had. But from the start, Ghaisar’s family kept steady pressure on the Park Police and federal authorities, holding well-attended vigils at the Lincoln Memorial on each anniversary of the shooting, protesting outside the Park Police station where the officers work, marching and chanting around the Justice and Interior departments’ headquarters, and finally filing civil suits against both the officers and the Park Police. The suit against the officers was recently dismissed, and the suit against the Park Police is set for trial next month.
Ghaisar, a graduate of Langley High School and Virginia Commonwealth University, was a widely loved fan of sports, junk food, social media and nonviolence. The second child of James and Kelly Ghaisar, he lived by himself in Tysons Corner and worked for his father’s accounting firm in McLean. On Nov. 17, 2017, he and his father had made plans to have dinner together at 8 p.m.
Bijan Ghaisar, pictured in April 2015, was shot dead by two U.S. Park Police officers in November 2017.
About 7:30 p.m., he was driving south on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Alexandria, away from McLean. In a lane of traffic, according to a police report and the other driver, Ghaisar suddenly stopped his Jeep and was struck from behind by a Toyota Corolla driven by Atif Rehman.
Rehman was operating as an Uber driver and had a passenger in the back seat. The passenger called 911, and Rehman said the Jeep started to drive away, with Ghaisar not speaking to or acknowledging Rehman. While Ghaisar was not legally at fault for the collision, he was mandated to stay at the scene. Rehman was ticketed for failing to pay full time and attention, the common charge for a rear-end fender bender, though federal prosecutors dropped the charge two months later.
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Either the Uber driver or passenger was able to report that the Jeep had a “BIJAN” license plate. A lookout was broadcast for the vehicle, and several minutes later, Vinyard and Amaya spotted it in Old Town Alexandria.
Vinyard, a Park Police officer since 2007, was driving. Amaya, on the Park Police since 2009, was the passenger. Vinyard told the FBI in a 2019 statement the two were riding together, rather than in separate cars as usual, because of a problem with Park Police radios, according to court filings in the lawsuit. Vinyard said the officers first spotted Ghaisar in Old Town, then pulled alongside him on the parkway south of Alexandria and told him to pull over, but he did not.
Vinyard and Amaya followed Ghaisar with their police lights and siren on, and Fairfax police Lt. Dan Gohn joined the pursuit in his cruiser, his in-car camera on. Park Police do not use in-car cameras or body-worn cameras.
With no shoulder to stop on, Ghaisar stopped in the right lane of traffic, the Fairfax lieutenant’s video shows. Amaya leaped out with his gun drawn, went directly to Ghaisar’s door and pointed his gun at Ghaisar’s head, the video shows. Ghaisar drove off, and Amaya slammed the butt of his pistol against the Jeep, its magazine dropping the ground, the video shows.
Park Police officers claim Bijan Ghaisar drove at officer, causing them to fatally shoot him
The pursuit resumed, with the Fairfax lieutenant following Ghaisar until the Park Police officers could take the lead. Ghaisar stayed in his lane and the Park Police officers radioed that they were driving 59 mph on the parkway, where the speed limit is 45 mph.
At the exit for West Boulevard Drive, Ghaisar signaled a right turn, then pulled off the parkway and stopped. Vinyard and Amaya both darted toward Ghaisar’s Jeep with guns drawn, the video shows. Again, Ghaisar drove away. Amaya kicked the Jeep as it drove away, the video shows.
The pursuit resumed on Alexandria Avenue, in the Fort Hunt neighborhood. At the intersection with Fort Hunt Road, Ghaisar stopped a third time. He waited as Vinyard pulled the Park Police car directly in front of his Jeep, the video shows, to block the Jeep from driving away. Ghaisar cannot be seen at any time in the video.
U.S. Park Police Officers Lucas Vinyard, left, and Alejandro Amaya as they fire into the Jeep driven by Ghaisar. They have claimed Ghaisar was driving toward Amaya.
Then Amaya gets out of the Park Police vehicle, gun drawn. Ghaisar activates his right turn signal and begins to slowly maneuver around the Park Police vehicle, with Amaya to the side of the Jeep. The video shows Amaya fire one shot. The Jeep stops briefly, then begins moving again.
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Vinyard appears with his gun drawn, and both officers fire into the Jeep as it moves away from them, the video shows. Amaya then holsters his gun and moves toward the front of both vehicles. The Jeep rolls forward, and Vinyard fires two more shots, the video shows. The Jeep stops. Then it rolls away from Vinyard again, and he fires two more shots, the video shows.
The Justice Department said the two officers each fired five shots, and that Vinyard fired the four shots that struck Ghaisar in the head. Ghaisar was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where the Park Police initially did not tell his parents what happened and only allowed them to see their son for 10 minutes per hour, the Ghaisars said, because he was a “suspect.” Ghaisar lived for 10 days and died on Nov. 27, 2017.
After three days, the Park Police handed the case over to the FBI. Then-Park Police Chief Robert MacLean would later say he wanted an impartial investigation, but he would not respond to numerous inquiries about the case. Park Police typically do not disclose the names of officers involved in shootings. MacLean was promoted last year to head of all law enforcement within the Interior Department.
The FBI also would not comment on the investigation or disclose the officers’ identities. After the Ghaisars sued the Park Police in 2018, Fairfax police supplied their reports to the family’s lawyers, and Vinyard and Amaya were named in suits filed in March 2019. The officers have declined to comment when contacted by The Post.
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano announces manslaughter indictments for Vinyard and Amaya. (Tom Jackman/The Washington Post )
In November, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney in Washington, who joined the case when the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria recused because of its close ties to the Park Police, declined to charge the officers.
U.S. Park Police officers will not face charges in shooting of Bijan Ghaisar
In its 2019 statement, the Justice Department said it “would have to prove not only that the officers used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that they did so ‘willfully,’ which the Supreme Court has interpreted to mean they acted with a bad purpose to disregard the law … evidence that an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent required.”
Descano, elected in November, took up the case in January. He said the Fairfax investigation took nine months because there were more than 11,000 reports and pieces of evidence, and the Justice Department refused to cooperate, requiring the Fairfax police to retrace the federal probe and reinterview witnesses.
If the case survives the challenge over whether federal officers can be charged by state prosecutors, Descano said assistant commonwealth’s attorneys Matthew Lowery and Kyle Manikas would try the manslaughter case.