TRUE SLANTE.D.
KainAmerican Times
Jun. 17 2010 - 11:53
am
| Fairfax County police blackout
By E.D. KAIN
Radley Balko has a
pretty disturbing piece over at Reason on the Fairfax County police and their
less-than-transparent policies: Last
November along the roadside of Richmond Highway, a major thoroughfare in
Fairfax County, Virginia, a police officer shot and killed David Masters, an
unarmed motorist, as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car. Masters, who was
bipolar, was wanted for allegedly stealing some flowers from a planter.
He had been given a
ticket the day before for running a red light and then evading the police
officer, though in a slow and not particularly dangerous manner. In January of
this year, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh announced
through a press release that he would not be filing any charges against the
officer who shot Masters. The shooting, Morrogh found, was justified due to a
“furtive gesture” by Masters that suggested he had a weapon. The only eyewitness
to the furtive gesture was the police officer who pulled the trigger. There
exists dash-cam video of Masters’ shooting. There are also police interviews of
other witnesses, and the police report itself. But the public and the press are
as unlikely to see any of those as they are to learn the officer’s name.
That’s because the Fairfax County Police Department—along
with the neighboring municipal police departments of Arlington and
Alexandria—are among the most secretive, least transparent law enforcement
agencies in the country. And local political leaders don’t seem particularly
concerned about it.Yes, you read that right. A police officer in Fairfax County
shot and killed an unarmed man wanted for allegedly stealing flowers from a
planter. Neither the police or the local government will release the officer’s
name. There will be no public hearing- (let alone a trial – to determine
whether there was any wrongdoing. Reporters have almost no access to any
information surrounding the incident.