Bijan Ghaisar's Family Awarded $5M Settlement In Fatal Police Shooting

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The family of Bijan Ghaisar, a 25-year-old McLean man shot and killed by U.S. Park Police officers in 2017, has settled with the federal government for $5 million, a court filing on Friday shows.

The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge, and a hearing has been scheduled for April 28 in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

The settlement calls for $1.25 million in legal fees, according to the filing. Parents James and Kelly Ghaisar will distribute the remaining $3.75 million to various charities.

The settlement ends five years of legal wrangling between Ghaisar’s family and the federal government. Two officers fatally shot the unarmed accountant in November 2017 following a stop-and-go chase on the George Washington Memorial Parkway outside Washington, D.C.

Dashcam footage released by Fairfax County police shows that police tried to pull Ghaisar’s car over twice on reports of a hit-and-run accident near Alexandria. Both times, Officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya appeared to approach Ghaisar’s car with weapons drawn, and each time he drove away.

The chase ended at Alexandria Avenue and Fort Hunt Road, when the officers fired at Ghaisar’s car as he sped away. The gunshots stopped the car, and caused it to nearly flip over. Ghaisar was struck 10 times with bullets, and died 10 days after the shooting from gunshot wounds to the head.

Ghaisar was unarmed and had no criminal record. Officers in court documents said they gave Ghaisar “chance after chance” to stop his car, and feared for their lives after his vehicle moved in Amaya’s direction. The officers claimed immunity and invoked the Supremacy Clause, which states that federal officers cannot be prosecuted for state crimes if they “reasonably” believe their actions to be necessary.

The Ghaisar family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2018 seeking $25 million. In 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice said it would not seek federal criminal civil rights charges against the officers, and the Department of Justice indicated this year it wouldn't reopen the case.

After the federal investigation was closed in 2019, prosecution by Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano led to involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm charges against both officers. A federal judge dismissed the case in October 2021, after the prosecution was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The commonwealth's appeal in the case was later dropped by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares.

He said the officers “acted reasonably in their use of force, and did no more than was necessary and proper to perform their lawful duties as federal officers.” Miyares ran his successful 2021 campaign for attorney general in opposition to the movement for holding police accountable for misconduct.

Thomas G. Connolly, the Ghaisar family’s lawyer, said that by ending the prosecution of Amaya and Vinyard in the shooting and overriding the decision of a grand jury in the case, Miyares "has substituted his own political calculations for the judgment of the citizens of Fairfax County who heard the evidence and decided to indict these two officers for killing Bijan Ghaisar.

"It is a tragedy that in this Commonwealth, justice is decided not by the evidence, but by the political whims of a novice AG," Connolly said in a statement.

Ghaisar’s death was marked by multiple vigils in the years following demanding prosecution of the officers, and more transparency regarding the case.

Ghaisar’s family agreed to continue with a civil lawsuit. "We are grateful to have reached a mutual resolution to end the litigation and we hope that closing this long chapter brings some comfort to the family," a Justice Department spokesperson said.

— Patch editor Emily Leayman contributed to this report.