ARLINGTON, Va. — There's a nasty back-and-forth battle going on between the Arlington police union and the county's top law enforcement official, after two construction workers were allegedly killed by a man previously jailed for drug and weapons offenses.
The feud started with a double shooting in Alexandria on July 16.
"It looks like a construction worker is down," an obviously concerned police officer shouted into her two-way radio, as she responded to the scene.
"We've got two victims with gunshot wounds to the head," another officer says after finding stepfather and stepson -- innocent bystanders -- Adrian Guzman and Juan Carlos Hernandez shot and killed allegedly by a man who had been kicking down doors at the apartment complex.
After the shooting, Arlington Now was the first to report the suspect had been released from jail in Arlington five months before the shooting. Arlington Police had arrested Francis Rose, charging him with drug and weapons offenses in 2020. He’d been in jail for two years.
But after a judge threw out critical evidence against Rose, suggesting officers had conducted an unconstitutional search of his bag, the Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney's office dropped the charges and Rose was released.
The Virginia GOP pounced on the progressive prosecutor.
"Dangerous criminals should be behind bars, but thanks to Radical Democrat prosecutors like [Parisa Dehghani-Tafti] they're continuing to terrorize our streets," the official state Republican Twitter page said.
The prosecutor responded to the tweet.
"I’m not casting blame on anyone: the police did a search they may have thought was constitutional; defense counsel zealously represented her client; the judge issued a ruling he believed correct," Dehghani-Tafti wrote on Twitter.. "Those 2 deaths are tragic; that they’re now being exploited for lies is wrong."
Now, the police union is piling on.
"A competent Commonwealth Attorney would have.... appealed the decision... or provided training to the police," the Arlington County Coalition of Police said.
Arlington Police Benevolent Assocition President Rich Conigliaro also criticized Dehghani-Tafti.
"She put all the blame on the officers [who arrested Rose in 2020]," he said. "Versus taking the blame and distributing it equally."
Conigliaro said prosecutors should have spent more time preparing the Arlington police officers for the hearing where the judge tossed out much of the evidence against him.
"Commonwealth Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti’s recent statements regarding the suppression hearing for Francis Rose, intentionally worded to cast fault on the officers involved, were based on self-preservation and deflection of blame" wrote the Arlington Coalition of Police in a press release distributed Wednesday.