The two U.S. Park Police officers involved in the fatal 2017 shooting of Bijan Ghaisar filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior in order to get a ruling on their pending case.
Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya have been on paid administrative leave since the shooting and were told more than two years ago they would be fired. But no action has been taken, and the officers want a final decision.
The lawsuit claims an internal investigation of the officers’ actions has never been conducted.
Kelly Ghaisar, Bijan Ghaisar’s mother, said she had no idea the officers were still on paid administrative leave until she heard about the lawsuit. Every inquiry about the officer’s employment status in the past two years has been denied.
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“Just like nothing surprises me about these two officers, nothing surprises me that the Park Police doesn’t do, because they handled Bijan’s murder very poorly from the beginning,” Ghaisar said.
Park Police never issued a statement about the Nov. 17, 2017, pursuit and shooting of the McLean accountant, instead turning the investigation over to the FBI.
“The fact that they haven’t done anything about these two officers, my belief is that their union is super powerful, so I think even the Department of Interior doesn’t have the guts to fire them,” Ghaisar said.
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Video of the pursuit down the George Washington Parkway after Ghaisar was involved in a minor fender bender was captured by a Fairfax County police dashboard camera. The video showed the officers both firing their weapons as Ghaisar slowly drove away from them.
After the Justice Department declined to charge the officers, they were indicted on state charges, which a federal judge eventually dismissed, ruling what the officers had done was necessary and proper.
“It’s not like we were given a trial or there was a jury, which a jury found them guilty,” Kelly Ghaisar said. “Basically, they got away with murder with qualified immunity, which is my lifelong goal — to get rid of qualified immunity.”
The Ghaisars settled a lawsuit with the federal government for $5 million.
News4 reached out to the Interior Department and the lawyers who filed the suit but has not heard back.
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