FCPD motor officer thrown from bike, seriously injured in collision near GMU

The Fairfax County Police Department’s motor squad encountered an emergency of its own while responding to an incident early this afternoon.

A motorcycle officer was seriously injured in a collision with a Jeep on Braddock Road that police believe was attempting to get out of the squad’s way, FCPD Public Affairs Bureau Commander Lt. Dan Spital said at a media briefing.

“Our officer had serious injuries,” Spital said. “At this point, he’s conscious and alert. We’re praying first for recovery for him, but we’re lucky it wasn’t more serious than it could’ve been.”

According to Spital, the motor officers were traveling west on Braddock near George Mason University’s Fairfax campus in response to an emergency situation elsewhere in Fairfax County.

When they passed through the Roanoke River Road intersection shortly after 12:30 p.m., a silver Jeep in the middle lane noticed the police lights and sirens and started to merge into the right lane, where two officers were riding.

“One of the officers was able to avoid the vehicle that cut in front of them. Unfortunately, one of our motor officers was unable to avoid a collision,” Spital said. “A motor officer did strike the back of a Jeep and was thrown from his motorcycle, and he hit the pavement.”

Officers are on scene of crash involving an FCPD motor officer at Braddock Rd & Roanoke River Rd. Officer taken to hospital with serious injuries. Braddock Rd is closed. Please use another route. pic.twitter.com/UT8Hfq7PbR

— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) December 9, 2022

The injured officer was transported to a hospital, where police say his condition has stabilized. He is a veteran of the FCPD motor squad with at least 16 to 17 years of experience in the department, according to Spital.

Spital said the Jeep driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with the investigation. Police are also interviewing other witnesses to the crash to determine the circumstances that led up to it, though the FCPD seems to preliminarily believe that the driver wasn’t intentionally cutting off its officers.

Police haven’t determined yet whether the driver is a GMU student or why they were traveling in the area.

“Before we can make any determination on fault at this point, we do have to make sure that everybody is interviewed and we come up with a larger picture of exactly what took place,” Spital said.

Spital said he’s “not aware” of the Braddock/Roanoke River intersection being considered dangerous. Virginia data shows one other crash there this year in January and multiple crashes with injuries in previous years, but no fatalities have been reported since the interactive data report began in 2010.