On
September 27, 1980 four citizens watched what they called "police
brutality" when a Fairfax County cop beat a man into submission with a
flashlight after he resisted arrest.
The
cop demanded that the on lookers assist him in the arrest, they refused, out of
fear of the cop "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 cop.
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.