On
Feburary 2, 2008, a bipolar man named Jeffrey S. Koger was on the run. He had stolen more than $3 million from
homeowners associations that were managed by his property management
company. He bought a gun a few weeks
before and had been practice shooting with it onside of his house, randomly
shooting up the walls.
That
night Kroger followed a cab driven by a man named Ayman Sirelkatim. A short time before, Kroger had driven to
Alexandria and, for no apparent reason, walked up to a taxicab stopped at a
light and fired several shots into the face, shoulder, and chest of the driver.
Kroger
then got back into his car and drove away and a short time later started to
follow Ayman Sirelkatim cab. Kroger
rammed Sirelkatim’s cab and Sirelkatim pulled his cab into the parking lot of
the Franconia station of the Fairfax County Police.
Seeing
Kroger follow him, Sirelkatim pulled out of the station lot. However two another cab driver, Najib Gerdak
and his friend Scott Duke, were in the lot talking. Koger drove in, climbed out of his car and
shot Duke and Gerdak several times, and then drove off.
Before the shooting started, Gerdak said he
went into the station to let police know that Kroger was chasing the cab driver
Ayman Sirelkatim across the parking lot.
Gerdak said that there was a woman at the front desk, not in a police uniform,
had her feet up and was asleep.
"She
fell asleep watching TV," Gerdak said.
He said that he tapped on the window until she woke up and told her, "There are two crazy
people chasing each other out front, a cab and an SUV”.
"She
tells me," Gerdak said”, 'You need to go back outside and tell the
cabdriver to call his own dispatcher.
"
Gerdak
then walked back to the parking lot when Kroger shot him four times. A sixth shot struck the cross around Gerdak's
neck, in front of his heart, and ricocheted.
Somehow Gerdak managed to 911 and then waited 30 minutes for the
ambulance to arrive.
In
June of 2010, Gerdak sued the police for $10 million. The case was dismissed by a reluctant U.S.
District Judge because it was filed too late.
Judge James C. Cacheris said he was "deeply unsatisfied" by
his own ruling earlier, "as the conduct alleged here is shocking to say
the least.” The Fairfax County Police
refused to release the name of the civilian employee who refused to help him
and referred to as “Jane Doe”.