“Every officer faces a count of involuntary manslaughter and a count of reckless discharge of firearms,” Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano told a news conference. The charges carry a combined maximum 15-year prison sentence.
“I wish this could have been done in a faster fashion,” Descano said Thursday. “However, there are no shortcuts to justice.”
In a statement, Iser’s family said they were “a little relieved” that officials were “close to being held accountable for what they did.”
“Many people who have vowed to protect and serve our communities commit deadly acts of violence and go unpunished,” the statement said. “With these allegations we are reminded that, at least here in Fairfax County, officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vineyard are not above the law.”
Advocates for the officers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Shooting
His family says he was also an outspoken opponent of gun violence.
CNN On the evening of November 17, 2017, Gasser was heading south on the George and Washington Washington Memorial Parkway outside Washington, according to a collision report obtained by. For some reason, Ghaiser left the scene of the collision, which is illegal in Virginia, and Park police soon began searching for his vehicle.
The park police officers’ vehicle did not have a dashboard camera, nor did they wear body cameras. But footage of the encounter was captured by Dash Shakeem, a Fairfax County police officer who chased the park in support of police.
According to the footage released by Fairfax Police in January 2018, Iser has been shut down at least three times. Each time, the park police officers got out of their own SUV and pulled out their guns and approached Ghaisar’s vehicle.
The first two stops, Geyser drove his vehicle around police motorists and fled from there, footage shows. At no time were officers found to be in danger of colliding with Ghaisar’s vehicle.
At the third stop, the park police SUV is pulled over by Ghaysar’s vehicle and officers exit. As Isar’s car moved forward, a series of shots were fired. Geiser’s jeep is seen fooling around in a roadside ditch.
Geiser was hospitalized and died 10 days later.
The plaintiff alleges that the Justice Department did not cooperate in the Festfax investigation
The FBI launched an investigation three days after the shooting, but the Justice Department remained virtually silent until last November, when it announced that charges would not be filed against Vineyard and Amaya.
“We are very angry and we are fighting so hard and we are in so much pain that we don’t even have a minute to process or mourn,” Bijan’s sister, Nagin Geiser, told CNN a year after the shooting.
Descano took over the case from his predecessor after his election last year. On Thursday, he called the case “complex and inconsistent”, citing a review of 11,000 documents and interview fragments conducted amid the Covid-19 epidemic.
Descano said making this more difficult is the key to the U.S. The Department of Justice refused to present witnesses for the benefit of our glorious judge or our hearing.
The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday.
Descano said he believes officials will try to move the case to federal court and the federal government will try to dismiss the case under the supremacy clause, which says that in the event of a conflict between state and federal laws, the latter takes precedence. .
Descano’s office fees are ready, he said, and his .fees requested the help of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring if there is federal legal action.
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