By Brian Trompeter
The Fairfax County police officer who fatally shot McLean resident Jasper Aaron Lynch in July 2022 “acted in an objectively reasonable manner” under the chaotic circumstances and will not face criminal charges, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said in an April 5 decision that drew a rebuke from Lynch’s family.
On July 7, 2022, county police dispatched officers to a residence 6900 block of Arbor Lane at 6:59 p.m. after 26-year-old Lynch was reported to have been having a mental-health episode.
The caller told police Lynch had a history of dissociation, but was not acting violently toward anyone and that there were no concerns about weapons, drugs or alcohol, Descano’s report read.
County police sent three officers and a clinician from the Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health to the scene, but Lynch was not home at the time and the response team left at 8 p.m.
At 8:34 p.m., police received another call stating Lynch was at the residence, having a mental breakdown and throwing objects. Three officers, all of whom had received Crisis Intervention Team training and two of whom had gone to the previous call, went to the residence.
After speaking to Lynch’s mother about the possibility trying to get her son to speak voluntarily with a mental-health professional, the officers entered the home at 8:52 p.m. No officer got more than a few feet inside the foyer, Descano wrote.
Officers announced their presence and Lynch sprang into the foyer from an adjoining room, the report read. He was holding a burgundy wine bottle with its thick base pointed downward and had a long wooden mask in his left hand, which was raised above his shoulder.
Officers only had time to ask him to put the mask down before Lynch smashed it on a table, breaking its glass. Two officers then unholstered their tasers and one his firearm, but did not point them at Lynch. Lynch then held the wine bottle like a club and flung the mask at the officers.
Two officers fired their tasers at Lynch, to no avail, and then Lynch yelled something indistinct and charged at two of the officers while chopping the bottle like a hatchet. Because the foyer’s lights were out officers could not track Lynch with their handheld flashlights during the attack, according to the report.
The officer with the firearm out, at the time 10-year veteran Pfc. Edward George, fired four rounds that failed to stop Lynch, who slammed into another officer and ended up struggling on top of him near the doorway. George fired again, hitting Lynch in the neck. Officers tried to render aid, but Lynch died at the scene.
While repeated viewings of the officers’ body-camera footage showed Lynch had dropped the bottle right before colliding with the officer, it was “not unreasonable” for George to think Lynch still controlled the bottle while on top of the officer and posed an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death, Descano wrote.
George “reasonably believed” Lynch intended to either kill or cause serious injury to him or the other officers on the scene and “it was therefore legally permissible for Officer George to use the level of force he deployed,” his statement read.
Lynch’s parents, Pat and Kathy Lynch, said in a media statement that they were “saddened and devastated” by Descano’s decision.
The couple said they had reviewed the officers’ body-camera footage and think Descano’s description of important elements of how the incident unfolded are incorrect.
“We cannot fathom how Aaron’s shooting could in any way be viewed as anything but unjustified and an excessive use of force,” their statement read. Their son “was on the ground after being tackled by another officer and was completely unarmed when Officer George fired the lethal final bullet in Aaron’s neck. This came after Officer George had fired at Aaron four times. Why was it necessary to shoot again?”
