1971: For the next four decades , the Fairfax County States Attorney will not charge a Fairfax County police officer with a crime.
1971: A management consulting study stated that the Fairfax County Police "are essentially neighborhood guards and report takers rather than police officers" and have a dismal record for solving crime with just 2.7% of all felonies solved versus a 21% national solved rate
1972: The cost to operate the county police, fire services, courts and welfare services was $69,000,000. By 2010, the police budget alone will exceed $150,000,000
1972: The adult son of a friend of the chief of police is released from jail on the chiefs orders after he was arrested for drunk driving.
June 12, 1972: The court reversed defendant's conviction for unlawful possession of LSD and remanded for a new trial that the search warrant used by Fair fax County police lacked probable cause
1974 Two officers are suspended after refusing to answer questions about graft and corruption inside the force.
August 22, 1974: Acting Fairfax County Executive Doug Harman ordered an investigation into police misconduct after the states attorney started its own investigation into widespread criminal wrong doing in the department.
August 23, 1974 Police shot an unarmed 26-year-old black man six times. The shooting leads to three hours of rioting by some black citizens in Herndon. Seventy five heavily armed police respond. A grand jury will investigate the shooting.
August 30, 1974: About sixty outraged black citizens of Herndon called a meeting with police to protest the killing of a black neighbor by white officers.
September 4, 1974: As horrified neighbors watch, police break up a teenage lawn party with batons. One teen is arrested. He later commits suicide in his jail cell, not an uncommon happening in Fairfax County.
January 1975: Although ordered to cut back spending by 3%, the Fairfax County Police department tells the board of supervisors that it will consider the cuts but that they, the police, are "still in the discussion stage" and informed the board of supervisors that if other departments in the county cut their budgets first, the police might not have to reduce their spending. The county was facing a $13 to $23 million dollar deficit and ordered all department, not only the police, to reduce spending by 3%.
February 26, 1975. A robbery suspect gets the drop on four detectives who had come to arrest him. He disarmed two of them and fled in a hail of gunfire.
1977- There were about 121 formal complaints filed against the County Police for the year
March 21, 1978: Fairfax County Police are forced to launch an internal investigation over an incident that the media coined as a "police riot". While on patrol (officers claimed they were called to the scene but the nightclub owner denied calling them) officer entered a nightclub on Route 1, and according to witnesses, began beating a suspect for unknown reason, pulling him from the club by his hair. The officers claimed that other patron interfered with the arrest and an unknown number of officers appeared on the scene and began randomly assaulting the bar patrons with paddy clubs. Not a single witness in the bar agreed with the officer’s version of the story. "The atmosphere inside the bar" said one witness of police who welded nightsticks at the slightest provocation "became one of absolute terror. People were afraid to move or say anything" Another witness said "The police just went berserk"
March 30, 1978: The father of a 16 year old boy beaten by police brought charges against the police officer involved in the beating. Witnesses, twelve neighbors, saw four officers beat the child with batons about the head. He was later taken to the hospital and treated. A police investigation later cleared the officers of any wrong doing in the case.
June 3, 1978: A federal grand jury was ordered to look into the beating of the 16-year-old by police. The investigation was to determine if the police department tried to cover up the incident
June 11, 1978: The Fairfax County Chief of Police claimed he had conducted an investigation and denied his officers were guilty of any wrong doing in the beating of night club patrons. Civilians present at the club at the time of the incident called it a cover up and said they were never interviewed by the police.
December 1978: 28-year old Donald Ferguson died after three days in jail. Police refused (who then ran the jail) refused to give Ferguson prescription drugs and kept him in leg irons and hand cuffs for two days and refused to give him water or food. The police investigated and cleared themselves of any wrong doing. The facts of the investigation are held secret by the police.
December 29, 1978. Police mistakenly kill yet another black man, this one a school janitor, with three shots to the head. The police investigated and cleared officer of any wrong doing. The facts of the investigation are held secret by the police.
1978: There were 125 formal complaints about police officers in Fairfax County, meaning just over one quarter of the force had complaints registered against them.
February 1, 1979: Fourteen elected representatives from Fairfax County launch an investigation into racism and brutality by the Fairfax County Police department. The officials will examine the unusual deaths of three healthy men within six months of being held in the county jail and the men’s accusation of police brutality while they were held
February 4, 1979: Fairfax County Deputy Chief told a county panel that his departments procedures for investigating an officer accused of brutality is decided in favor of the department and the officer and unfair to the public
February 13, 1979: Police mistakenly shot and killed an innocent man as he stepped from his mother’s apartment house which police had staked out in pursuit of a suspect. The police investigated and cleared officer of any wrong doing. The facts of the investigation are held secret by the police.
August 14, 1979: Witnesses watched as a gang of Fairfax County Police clubbed a hand cuffed man they had arrested for drunk driving. The man, who was recently released from the hospital for a gall bladder operation, was bent over a fence and punched in the face by officers and then slammed onto the hood of his car.
September 28, 1979: Fairfax County Police launch a public relations campaign to improve their image.
1979: There were 95 formal complaints filed against police officers for the year. Police determined that less than 27 were worth pursuing and of that, only one officer was suspended…for one day without pay. Another received an oral reprimand.
1979: Police would accidently kill two innocent civilians this year
September 20, 1979: Fairfax Citizens for Improved Law Enforcement in Fairfax County issues a public statement that it opposes the police plan to create a citizens advisory group which it calls "Window dressing". The few people in the county who support the police version of a powerless advisory committee, is the board of supervisors….who share office with the police.
1980: For several decades the Fairfax County Police have been charging citizens involved in accidents with "Failure to maintain proper control of a vehicle" until a Virginia State Senator establishes that there is no such on the books anywhere in America including Fairfax County. Several weeks after the practiced is forced to stop, the legislator is involved in a minor fender bender. Police recognize him and arrest him for reckless driving.
1980: There were 140 formal complaints against Fairfax County police, more than al of the jurisdictions in the greater DC area. "Over the years" writers the ACLU "there seems to be a more pronounced pattern of complaints in the Fairfax County Police"
February 23, 1980: Two off duty police officers are accused of using "extreme force" on a citizen who fled the scene of a minor car accident. The case was settled in federal court.
April, 1980: Police arrest and jail a man on burglary based on "positive ID’ by the house maid. The accused man hires a private detective who has the housemaid, a non-English speaking Asian, swear out a statement that she never spoke to police and certainly didn’t give them a positive ID of anyone. The arresting officers were not charged with false arrest nor reprimanded although one was "counseled" on being argumentative with the falsely accused citizen on the night of the arrest.
May 22, 1980: At 11:00 PM, police responded to a call about a man mowing his lawn. An argument broke out and one of the two officers beat the beat to the ground with his flash light. A second officer was also accused of holding the man while he was being beaten, but…and despite witness testimony…the second officer denied he was present for the beating. The man’s nose, rib, and hand were fractured in the beating. The man sued in federal court.
October 10, 1980: A federal court finds that two Fairfax Police officers used excessive force against a citizen after he was arrested for speeding. The court found that the officers pulled the man from the car by his hair, handcuffed him and pushed his head repeatedly into the cars fender.
April 19, 1981: A Washington Post feature story runs with the lead in headline "Fairfax Police: Highest Number of Misconduct Charges in Suburbs"
August 28, 1980 A man convicted of burglary had his conviction reversed because his
confession at the hands of Fairfax County Police was unlawful search and seizure
September 27, 1980: Four citizens watched what they called "police brutality" when a Fairfax County police officer beat a man into submission with a flashlight after he resisted arrest. The officer demanded that the on looker assist him in the arrest, they refused, out of fear of the officer "might turn his flash light on us". Police later traced one of the on lookers by his license plate and eight hours after the incident, went to his home and arrested him for refusing to assist the officer. It is, to anyone recollection or recorded history, the first time in the Washington area that a citizen was arrested for refusing to partake in an arrest.
November 21, 1981 A senior officer is indicted for embezzling $280.00 from the Boy Scout of America.
November, 1982: The County limited teacher’s salaries to a 3% increase but gave the police $3,000,000 for two helicopters armed with high tech equipment, plus $378,000 for pilot training plus almost $70,000 to train an auxiliary police force set to number 100 persons. The Fairfax Police also took over the County Park Police system, and reached an agreement with the board of supervisors to increase police pay in the next budget plus an additional $800,000 for new finger printing services.
November 29, 1983: An officer recently released from the force was arrested and sent to a mental asylum after being labeled "armed and dangerous" after fleeing an incident involving his wife.
1983: Black officer Sheila Patterson has her chair maced by fellow officers. Earlier another officer sprayed mace at her from his car and explained later that spraying the mace was a joke.
1984: The police department requests almost $25,000 for shoes for its officers. The department argued that since the county pays for the officers uniforms it should pay for their shoes as well.
May 21, 1985 Two Fairfax police officers moonlighting as security at a local cement manufacturing company assault striking workers who were standing on public property. The Teamster International calls the attack "A stunning case of blatant police brutality"
April 5, 1988 The court reversed the conviction of a man convicted on three counts of robbery and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery because police tainted out-of-court identifications after the witnesses testified that the single photograph had aided them in their in-court identification.