Two people have died, and two more have been hospitalized in an apparent shooting and stabbing at the Tysons View Apartments in Idylwood.
A 20-year-old man had been reported shot in the 2200 block of Pimmit Run Lane, a dispatcher said at 3:37 p.m. on the police scanner.
The man and a second person who was shot were declared dead, while two people were stabbed and transported to a hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening, according to Fairfax County police.
“Several suspects were seen running from apartment,” the Fairfax County Police Department said at 4:45 p.m, advising community members to avoid the area.
According to scanner traffic, one of the victims told an officer that the suspects were wearing masks, and three of them wore backpacks. The dispatcher noted that a helicopter was unavailable for the search due to the rainy weather.
UPDATE: 2 victims suffered stab wounds considered not life threatening. 2 victims were shot and have been declared deceased. PIOs enroute to the scene.
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 29, 2023
Four people have been arrested and charged in the death of a woman who was found, possibly shot, in the Inova Mount Vernon Hospital parking lot on April 13.
Detectives have determined that Brenda Ochoa Guerrero, 33, of Alexandria died at a house in the 2500 block of Fairhaven Avenue in Huntington, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
She was then driven to the hospital at 8033 Holland Road, where a community member found her unconscious in the passenger seat of a vehicle with a gunshot wound, police said.
“Detectives from our Major Crimes Bureau responded to the scene and immediately began investigating,” the FCPD said. “Detectives located surveillance footage of two men who drove the car to the hospital parking lot and two individuals who were in the SUV that picked them up.”
According to police, an anonymous tip helped detectives identify 43-year-old David Littlefield and 36-year-old Eric Thompson, both from Alexandria, as the men who drove Ochoa Guerrero to the hospital and left her.
Police say they were picked up in a different car by 35-year-old Alexandria resident Eric Rubio and 29-year-old Maryland resident Yuris Pineda Gallegos.
Officers arrested Rubio, Thompson and Littlefield on May 14, according to Fairfax County court records. Gallegos turned herself in at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center yesterday (Wednesday), according to the police.
All four of them have been charged with concealment of a dead body, a Class 6 felony in Virginia.
Rubio and Littlefield remain in custody without bond. However, Pineda Gallegos was released by a magistrate on personal recognizance, and a judge granted Thompson a supervised release on May 18, according to a Fairfax County General District Court clerk.
According to the court, Thompson was assigned a probation officer with whom he has to check in periodically.
A preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for July 17, per court records.
The circumstances around Ochoa Guerrero’s death are still under investigation, the FCPD said.
(Updated at 6:25 p.m.) A Florida man arrested in McLean yesterday (Tuesday) had guns in his car and was allegedly on his way to the CIA, Fairfax County police say.
The man was reported for trespassing at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church (1125 Savile Lane) around 11:11 a.m. The church is also the site of Dolley Madison Preschool and the Speech and Language Center of Northern Virginia.
“He’s acting strange. Caller approached, and subject stated he was going to walk his dog and he headed toward the CIA building,” a dispatcher said, according to scanner traffic on Open MHz.
The Fairfax County Police Department says that the man wasn’t armed when officers found him, but two guns, including an AK-47, were found in his car.
The 32-year-old man from Florida has been detained and charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property, according to the FCPD.
“We appreciate Fairfax County Police’s diligence in addressing this threat, and we will continue to cooperate with them to ensure the security and safety of our personnel and our facility,” a CIA spokesperson said.
The man was detained & search warrant executed on his vehicle. Two firearms (pictured) were recovered from the car. Eric Sandow, 32, of Florida was charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property. #FCPD
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 24, 2023
A 46-year-old motorcyclist died in a crash on Hooes Road in Lorton late last week.
Springfield resident Samuel Gensler was riding a 2001 Harley Davidson north on Hooes Road Friday (May 19) afternoon when he lost control at the curve approaching the Crosspointe Glen Way intersection, the Fairfax County Police Department says.
According to police, Gensler veered off the roadway, “struck a driveway and was separated from the motorcycle.”
Police officers responded to the scene at 4:54 p.m. Gensler was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died.
“Detectives continue to investigate to determine whether speed and alcohol were factors in the crash,” the FCPD said in a news release on Saturday (May 20).
Gensler is the sixth non-pedestrian to be killed in a crash on Fairfax County roads this year — double the number of fatalities seen at this point in 2022, according to the FCPD. Earlier this month, another motorcyclist died in a crash on Richmond Highway in Lorton.
There have also been four pedestrian deaths, most recently when a fire engine hit a woman in Reston.
Those numbers from the FCPD don’t include highway incidents, such as last week’s fatal crash with a deer on the Dulles Access Road in Tysons. In total, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has recorded 11 fatalities in Fairfax County this year, though state data doesn’t show any deaths in May yet.
Fairfax County police are looking for a man who allegedly broke into a woman’s home in Chantilly and tried to sexually assault her.
Officers were called to a house on Iberia Circle at 12:02 p.m. yesterday (Thursday). The man entered the woman’s home through an unlocked door “and attempted to sexually assault her,” according to the police.
“The victim was able to escape her house and contact the police,” the Fairfax County Police Department said in a news release today. “The suspect left on foot prior to police arrival. The victim was taken to a local hospital for injuries that were non-life-threatening.”
Police described the man as a stranger to the victim with “straight black hair and a medium build.” At the time of the assault, he was “wearing a long sleeve black shirt, dark pants, and a light blue hospital-style mask,” the FCPD said.
Detectives are investigating the incident as a daytime burglary and attempted sexual assault.
The department said its detectives can be contacted as follows:
Detectives are asking anyone with information regarding this incident to call our Major Crimes Bureau at 703-246-7800, option 3. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through Crime Solvers by phone – 1-866-411-TIPS (866-411-8477), and by web – Click HERE. Download the ‘P3 Tips’ App “Fairfax Co Crime Solvers”. Anonymous tipsters are eligible for a cash reward. Please leave contact information if you wish for a detective to follow up with you.
An 18-year-old man from Alexandria has been charged with reckless driving after allegedly crashing into a pedestrian on Richmond Highway in March, killing her.
Shortly before 9:30 p.m. on March 30, Luis Merino Berrios was driving south on Richmond Highway in a 2007 Mercedes C230 when he lost control near Groveton Street, a change from the originally reported location of Clayborne Avenue.
From the Fairfax County Police Department:
The driver of a 2017 Jeep Wrangler attempted to make a left turn from northbound Richmond Highway onto Groveton Street. Detectives determined Berrios was traveling at an excessive speed. He attempted avoidance maneuvers, lost control of his Mercedes, and struck the Jeep Wrangler. Berrios’s vehicle spun several times before leaving the roadway striking Samantha Jennings-Jones who was walking on the sidewalk.
Jennings-Jones was declared dead at the scene. She was 36.
Berrios was charged today (Thursday) and released on a summons, which means he’s still legally allowed to drive, the FCPD said.
Police said they didn’t have the exact speed Berrios was driving, but it was “excessive” for that section of Richmond Highway, which had a 45 mph speed limit.
Starting on Tuesday (May 23), the speed limit will be dropped to 35 mph in response to years of concerns about the roadway’s safety. Another pedestrian was killed on Route 1 just a week after Jennings-Jones died, and earlier this month, a motorcyclist was killed in the Lorton area.
According to her obituary, Jennings-Jones was working in the White House Office of the National Cyber Directorate when she died. She had a husband and two cats.
“Sam was a firm believer that friends are the family you choose, and she will be missed by the many friends and colleagues whose lives she touched and was such a big part of,” the obituary said.
Photo via Google Maps
A board-commissioned workgroup is calling for changes to Fairfax County Police Department’s use of force policies and expanded independent oversight.
At a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors safety and security committee meeting on Tuesday (May 16), a 10-member Police Reform Matrix Working Group (MWG) created by the board released a broad 46-page report that establishes the need for policy changes and additional accountability.
The report builds on more than 300 recommendations from a community-wide survey of residents that evaluated the FCPD’s public safety and security responsibilities. It was influenced by the death of Timothy Johnson, who was shot and killed by an officer who pursued him for reportedly stealing sunglasses at Tysons Corner Center.
The officer who shot Johnson was fired but not indicted. A second officer who also fired his gun remains with the department.
“The MWG could not overlook the totality of these events and the context within which we received and created an actionable set of policy and program initiatives,” the report said.
As noted by the report, the FCPD has had eight police shootings in the past 15 months after the prior decade averaged 1.5 per year. Starting in 2022, police officers have killed four people, including Brandon Lemagne just last week.
In a recent study, a team from the University of Texas San Antonio found Black civilians are almost two times more likely than white civilians to experience high levels of force. Additionally, Black civilians were 1.2 times more likely than arrested white civilians to have force used against them.
Board Chairman Jeff McKay said the report is working document that will inform continuous change in the FCPD, which he said is in a much better place than it was in 2015.
“To be a great police department, you have to constantly evolve,” McKay said.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said he appreciates the recommendations — some of which are already going forward — particularly the co-responder model, which emphasizes coordination between police and mental health professionals.
“This is not easy. This is complex fraught with emotion, human emotion,” Alcorn said, adding that the rise in shootings by officers is not acceptable.
But Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity said he struggled to reconcile the report with high levels of confidence reported by recent community surveys.
“We don’t have broad community input into this. We’ve got a group of police reform folks that got together and hasn’t heard the other side of the impact,” Herrity said.
Looking forward
The report argues that most recommendations by the county’s Use of Force Community Advisory Committee — a group charged with reviewing the university’s report — weren’t adopted in full, despite revisions to FCPD’s use-of-force general order in 2022.
It emphasizes that any force must be proportional to the risk of harm to the officer or others, and the events leading up to the use of force have to be taken into account. It also says the FCPD should add pointing a gun or other weapon to its definition of force, revising a current standard that treats it as a separate reportable action not subject to a use-of-force investigation. Read More
A woman was shot in the arm after someone fired multiple gunshots near the Hybla Valley Community Center this afternoon (Tuesday).
The Fairfax County Police Department is advising community members to avoid the 7900 block of Janna Lee Avenue, where officers are currently gathering evidence from the shooting.
According to scanner traffic on Open MHz, a caller reported hearing “four to five shots” in the area around 4:54 p.m. A couple of minutes later, the victim called from an abandoned Goodwill store on Richmond Highway, saying that she had been shot in the arm.
The woman was transported to Inova Fairfax Hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening.
Scanner traffic indicates that multiple buildings were damaged in the shooting, with officers finding multiple shell casings, shattered glass and windows with bullet holes.
A caller told the FCPD that a vehicle with “blacked-out windows” sped away from the scene.
Police are also looking for a man who was with the woman at the time of the shooting and is considered a possible witness.
Earlier this year, the 7900 block of Janna Lee Avenue was the site of a fatal stabbing stemming from a domestic violence incident.
One person was transported to the local hospital in non life-threatening condition. Detectives are on scene investigating the shooting. Please follow our blog, https://t.co/XTgRJykwD5, for any available updates.
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 16, 2023
An Alexandria man was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday (May 10) for selling fentanyl to a woman who died from an overdose in Clifton in 2021.
Reza Hashemi, 34, was sentenced for conspiring to distribute over 400 grams of fentanyl in Northern Virginia between July 2020 and June 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release announcing the judgment by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.
According to court documents, Fairfax County police were called to a home in the Clifton area on May 28, 2021 by a witness who told 911 that a woman had taken an “unknown white substance” and needed naloxone, the drug that can reverse opioid overdoses.
A woman identified as J.F. was found unresponsive in the residence’s basement and pronounced deceased at 11:44 p.m. after failed resusitation efforts, one of the responding police officers said in an affidavit.
The witness told police that they had obtained powder fentanyl from Hashemi at a spot near Reed Avenue in Alexandria City.
Police arrested Hashemi in Tysons on June 2, 2021 after he dropped off fentanyl that the witness had arranged to buy from him, according to the affidavit.
Court records indicate that Hashemi reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in February.
“Mr. Hashemi became addicted to opioids after suffering trauma early in his life. He accepted responsibility early on in this case and continues to do so,” the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Alexandria, which represented Hashemi, said in a statement. “Although we do not agree that the sentence imposed was necessary, Mr. Hashemi accepts the court’s decision and is determined to address his own addiction through the next 15 years and beyond.”
In announcing the sentencing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office also linked Hashemi to the Oct. 24, 2020, fatal overdose of a 22-year-old man identified as J.V. in Vienna.
Hashemi distributed drugs, including “pressed counterfeit pills containing fentanyl,” to J.V. from Sept. 18, 2020 to “at least” Oct. 14, 2020, according to a statement of facts filed by prosecutors. After police informed him of J.V.’s death, Hashemi said he didn’t want to talk to law enforcement without a lawyer.
Court documents don’t explain how police determined that the drugs involved in J.V.’s overdose were the ones he got from Hashemi. The U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t respond to FFXnow’s request for comment by press time.
“The government’s repeated insinuations in connection with [Hashemi’s] invocation of his right to counsel misrepresent the facts and betray an ignorance of every individual’s constitutional rights,” the public defender’s office said.
Photo via Google Maps
(Updated at 2 p.m. on 5/12/2023) A man from Newport News was killed during a struggle with police in Penn Daw where two officers fired their guns.
No officers were injured in the gunfire, which occured outside a McDonalds (6239 Richmond Highway), but one officer was hospitalized with head injuries from a fight with 38-year-old Brandon Lemagne prior to the shooting, the Fairfax County Police Department said.
“He was fighting for his life, literally,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said of the injured officer in a media briefing.
According to the FCPD, the encounter began when that officer got a license plate alert at 4:06 p.m. for a U-Haul truck that had been reported stolen in Richmond on May 3. The officer pulled into the Citgo gas station adjacent to McDonalds when Lemagne stopped the truck at the station and got out.
“He made contact with driver outside the vehicle,” Davis said. “Very shortly thereafter, the assailant — and that’s what I’m calling him — shoved our police officer into the open front driver’s door of the marked police car and was attacking him, was on top of him and was violently assaulting our uniformed Fairfax County police officer.”
At some point during the struggle, the police cruiser was put in reverse and drove backwards until it hit two vehicles parked at McDonalds.
Scanner traffic on Open MHz captured an officer yelling, “He’s got my gun” at 4:07 p.m., followed about 20 seconds later by shouts of “shots fired.”
According to police, two officers — a 24-year veteran and an 8-year veteran from the Mount Vernon District station — responded to the dispatch. The 8-year veteran fired “several rounds,” while the other pulled Lemagne off of the police officer, Davis said.
The 24-year veteran then fired his gun, hitting and killing Lemagne.
“Several shots fired. We got the guy,” an officer told the dispatcher.
The officer’s gun was recovered from the scene, and he was discharged from the hospital a day later.
Describing the incident as “pretty dramatic” and unlike anything he’s seen before, Davis noted that there was body-worn camera and surveillance footage of the incident. A video from what appears to be a cell phone has already been circulated on social media.
This is the second fatal shooting by Fairfax County police this year, after D.C. resident Timothy Johnson was killed outside Tysons Corner Center on Feb. 22.
“All officer involved shootings receive the utmost investigative attention from our internal affairs bureau and major crimes,” Davis said, later adding that “we certainly take the loss of any life very seriously.”
No officers were injured from the gunfire. Updates to follow.
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 11, 2023
— Romeo (@RVANOVA01) May 11, 2023
