Two U.S. Park Police officers stood within close range of Bijan C. Ghaisar as he sat behind the wheel of his stopped Jeep Grand Cherokee, then fired nine shots into his vehicle as it slowly veered into a ditch away from the officers, a video recording of the Nov. 17 incident released Wednesday shows.
In the moments before he was shot, there also does not appear to be any interaction with or provocation by Ghaisar, whose window remained closed. His Jeep began to move slowly forward again after stopping, the video shows, sparking the first set of five shots. When the Jeep drifted forward four seconds later, the officers fired two more times at close range. When it drifted again 11 seconds later, the officers fired a final two shots, the video shows.
The five-minute video marks a crucial turning point in the investigation of the deadly shooting, and the bold decision to release it was made by Fairfax County police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. The Fairfax department was not involved in the shooting and is not involved in the investigation, but one of its officers trailing the pursuit captured the incident on his in-car video camera. The FBI is investigating the shooting, has released no information about the case and given no indication that they would do so anytime soon. So Roessler made the unusual call to release evidence in another department’s case. He said he informed the FBI and Park Police of his intention and that he did not believe it would harm the investigation.
Not knowing what the officers saw the driver doing in the passenger compartnent at the time they shot, I have no thoughts about whether or not the shooting was justified at that point.
I will ask if that is an example of the traffic stop tactics and techniques by the US Park Police. If it is, I would be interested in why they use that technique. It appears to repeatedly place the passenger officer at risk by putting in close proximity to the suspect’s vehicle.
In terms of getting out on foot that close to the suspect’s vehicle and the eventual shooting, I’d ask if they considered the circuit court’s ruling in Quezada v. The County of Bernalillo (NM), (No. 90-2014, 944 F.2d 710, September 9, 1991, Filed).
One possibility is to provide some plausible justification for an otherwise unjustified shoot. By placing themselves in front of suspect’s car , the give themselves the old standby, “IN fear for my life and safety…” . Of course the proffesion is willfully blind to the intentional bad tactics and homicidal misconduct , tries to clinically explain away a bad shoot via faulty training, stress, inexperience. Just like Daniel Shaver execution.