FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — A Fairfax County Police officer is now charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery after the police chief watched a video of him conducting an arrest on June 5.
Police describe the Mount Vernon man seen in the video tased and pinned down by the officer as “a man in crisis, wandering around in a roadway.” The officer’s attorney says it was a case of “mistaken identity” of a person with a known criminal record.
"I can begin monitoring the investigation from day one," said Richard Schott. Former FBI agent Schott was appointed in 2017 by Fairfax County supervisors to independently audit police use of force investigations.
"I am reviewing their investigation and if I don’t think their investigation has been done completely and thoroughly, I indicate that," Schott said.
Fairfax County created Schott’s position and a separate civilian review panel after the 2013 police shooting of John Geer. Geer was unarmed when he was shot and killed as he stood with his hands raised in the doorway of his Springfield home. Police officer Adam Torres pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. But county action came only after two years of protests.
Former police officer Hansel Aguilar is a member of the Fairfax County Police Civilian Review Panel. The panel reports to Fairfax County Supervisors whether members think police internal investigations are thorough – but cannot act on its findings.
"I’m originally from Honduras. There’s a whole history there with police conduct and misconduct,” said Aguilar. “When you put it into context of police culture and put it into context of a minority perspective, you start having a different conversation and you start saying, did they really look at this case how they should have? Did they ask the right questions? Did they consider the perspective of the community members?”
In Fairfax and Prince George’s County, officers face civilian review panels. D.C. and Montgomery County leaders have proposed setting up their own civilian review boards. Arlington County currently does not have any plans to create civilian review panels.
But these civilian review boards cannot collect new evidence. They rely on what police provide them. For example, the DC police union is resisting a recent bill to create civilian oversight of police, saying ideas are being rushed in violation of preexisting contract agreements protecting police officers from losing their jobs from on-duty actions.
"Chief Newsham has done a very good job in implementing changes and keeping the department progressive in moving forward, whether it’s body-worn cameras, the work they’re doing on training on deescalation, on implicit bias training," said D.C. Police Foundation Executive Director Patrick Burke.
Erik Scott was shot and killed by Las Vegas Police in 2010. Erik's father, former aviation writer Bill Scott, now campaigns nationally for police shootings to be investigated independently, similar to how the National Transportation Safety Board investigates plane crashes.
"It’s been ten years since Erik was shot and killed. He would be 48 now. I’m sure he would be married and have a couple of kids. He would probably be a very, very good father," Scott said. "If an airliner goes down, loses 200 people, but the pilots from that airline and their managers and their mechanics, they do their own investigation, so they go out, they look at the pieces, they interview the right people, and they say, 'Hey, it wasn’t our fault, it was a strange turbulent thing, or whatever,' and if that is always the answer, 'Not our fault, we did everything right,' how many people would get on an airliner? Especially, if the airline industry as a whole were killing three people a day, every day of the year."
Policing the police is just one of the rallying points for Black Lives Matter protesters. Setting up some civilian review with new panels within existing labor agreements has taken years. Many protesters aren’t expressing a willingness to wait any longer for change.
