State of the Station

Of Fairfax County Police Department’s eight districts, the Sully District stands out with the lowest total number of index crimes—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft—committed during the 2010 calendar year. 

The Sully District had the fewest number of aggravated assaults, burglaries, and larcenies in the county, but in 2010 it also had the second-highest number of murders (three).

At a Citizens Advisory Committee meeting on Oct. 18, Captain Purvis Dawson, commander of the , and Lt. John Trace, assistant commander, presented the annual crime data for the region, which was most recently published in the 2010 Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) Annual Report. 

“Our patrol division is called Patrol Division One, which encompasses Reston, Sully and Fair Oaks,” said Dawson. “Fair Oaks had 1,773 index crimes, Reston had 1,501, and we were right there at 1,375. The moral of the story is, Division One is looking good when compared to the other divisions.”

The Fair Oaks, Reston and Sully Districts, which comprise Patrol Division One, were the only districts in Fairfax County that had fewer than 2,000 crimes last year.

Though the FCPD Annual Report only contains data through December 2010, some local statistics through September 2011 were presented during Tuesday’s CAC meeting. The Sully District has seen a slight increase in destructions this year, but significant decreases in auto thefts, burglaries, larcenies, robberies, and sex offenses and peepings.  

Several citizens also had questions about the county’s Animal Control Division; last year Animal Control Officers handled a total of 14,799 cases and impounded 2,690 animals. Residents wanted to know: with an abundant local population of deer, skunks, and geese, what is Fairfax County doing in the way of wildlife management?

“I don’t want anybody to leave this room and think that the only way that we manage our deer population is strictly ; there are other methods that we do use,” Dawson said, adding that the county is working with state game wardens on multiple issues regarding local wildlife.

The Sully District Station also produces a high number of DWI arrests. Two Sully Station officers, Silvana Masood and Joseph Woloszyn, have routinely had more DWI arrests than any other officers in the county and have been recognized twice by MADD for having produced the most DWI arrests in the metropolitan region.

Though the overall number of crimes committed in the Sully District seems to be declining, there’s one area in which Trace said citizens can expect to see an increase in arrests: hotel and massage parlor prostitution rings. Such sex crimes have not been previously targeted at the district station level. Trace said the Sully District Police have new operations in place that have already led to several arrests, including two this past weekend.

“That’s where our numbers should inflate over time,” Trace said, “It’s not that the crimes are increasing, it’s just that we’re uncovering them.” 

2010 Sully District crime stats:

• three murders
• seven rapes
• 29 robberies
• 89 burglaries
• 27 aggravated assaults
• 1,139 larcenies
• 81 motor vehicle thefts

Citizens Advisory Committee meetings are held monthly at the and all members of the community are invited to attend. For more information, contact CAC Chair Leslie Jenuleson at dljenuleson@verizon.net.