July 19, 2019
The two police officers who killed Bijan Ghaisar in Virginia a year and half ago have now said they shot him in self-defense.
The explanation raised many eyebrows as the 25-year-old Ghaisar was seated in his car’s driver’s seat unarmed when the officers fired nine shots, four of them striking his head.
In a filing June 26 to the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the lawyer for US Park Police officer Lucas Vinyard said Ghaisar was shot “as the result of his own intentional, illegal, and/or otherwise wrongful conduct.”
The next day, other lawyers filed a largely similar answer for officer Alejandro Amaya.
The filings were in answer to a civil suit filed against them by Ghaisar’s family. The government has not yet decided whether to file a criminal suit against the pair of officers.
Vinyard and Amaya followed Ghaisar’s Jeep down the George Washington Parkway across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, on November 17, 2017. Ghaisar had been rear-ended in a fender-bender and had left the scene.
Dash cam video released by the Fairfax County (Virginia) Police Department showed that as the Park Police followed Ghaisar, he stopped his Jeep twice, but drove away twice, as officers pointed their guns at him.
After the third stop, Vinyard and Amaya approached Ghaisar’s vehicle, with guns drawn.
The video shows when Ghaisar’s Jeep moved forward very slowly, the officers fired nine times.
In the filings, the officers denied pointing any weapons at Ghaisar in each of the three stops despite the video.
In their point-by-point responses, the officers invoked their Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate themselves several times.
In addition, each of the attorneys said their client “lacks sufficient information to admit or deny the allegations,” to statements including, “Amaya and Vinyard were within close range of Bijan as he sat unarmed behind the wheel of his Jeep, when they fired nine shots into his vehicle.”
However, in several cases, the officers’ attorneys denied the family’s statements that there was no threat to Amaya or Vinyard when they fired, and that there was no basis to believe the officers reasonably perceived imminent danger or death.
The FBI conducted an investigation and turned its findings over to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, to determine whether the officers should be charged. A decision is still awaited.