Fairfax NAACP Calls Herndon Chief's Remarks 'Inflammatory'

HERNDON, VA — The Fairfax County NAACP issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, calling comments made by Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard during a Tuesday press conference "inflammatory." DeBoard was defending Officer M.F. Murn, who was the subject of allegations levied by a Herndon Middle School parent.

Earlier on Tuesday, representatives of the Fairfax County NAACP and Sandra Barksdale, the parent of a 13-year-old Herndon Middle School student, accused Murn of racial profiling and filing a false police report in connection with a Sept. 19, 2019, altercation on a Fairfax County Public Schools bus. Barksdale claimed that her son was the victim of an attack by another student, and that Murn had misrepresented the incident in his official report. Murn said he had based his report on witness interviews and a bus video, which did not contain audio.

DeBoard strongly defended her officer's conduct and accused Barksdale and the Fairfax County NAACP of trying to create a false narrative to bolster the group's efforts to remove school resource officers from Fairfax County schools.

In its statement, the Fairfax County NAACP said DeBoard made several inflammatory comments and accusations against the group during her press conference.

"The chief did not view the video in question nor did she have a grasp of the facts in the officer’s report," NAACP's statement said. "The chief claimed that there were 8 witness statements — more than double the witnesses cited in Officer Murn’s report. She claims that the report was created from the witness statements. Officer Murn states that he 'watched bus video of the incident' and then describes said video in his report. His description of the video is what is in dispute."

NAACP's statement noted that the witnesses Murn cited were interviewed two weeks after the Sept. 19 incident and those interviews provided the reason for the assault and not a description of the incident. The Fairfax County NAACP said it has filed a Freedom of Information request for the video.

"We will reiterate that, unlike the Chief, our message is not 'trust us,' it is 'release the video, review the report, and decide for yourself,'" the statement said.

The bus video is in the possession of FCPS, which said Tuesday it would not release the video due to the "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law designed to protect student privacy, since bus videos usually depict multiple students, each of whom have privacy rights under FERPA."

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