Body-Cam Video Of Fatal Shooting Of Man In Crisis By Fairfax Police Released

MCLEAN, VA — Fairfax County Police released body-worn camera footage on Thursday in connection with the July 7 fatal police-involved shooting of a McLean resident who was experiencing a mental health crisis at his home.

During the incident, Jasper Aaron Lynch, 26, was shot four times by a Fairfax County Police officer who had entered the foyer of the home in the 6900 block of Arbor Lane in McLean. When Fairfax County fire and rescue personnel arrived, Lynch was pronounced dead at the scene.

Around 8:34 p.m. on July 7, a friend called 911 to report that Lynch was acting aggressively inside the home, where Lynch lived with his parents, who were not home at the time of the fatal shooting.

When three crisis intervention team-trained police officers entered the home, Lynch was holding a bottle and an object, believed to be a large decorative wooden tribal mask, police said. The department said the three officers attempted to de-escalate the situation with verbal commands inside the foyer of Lynch's home.

When they saw Lynch after entering the home, a police officer said, "Aaron, you're alright."

Lynch responded, "Are my parents here?" according to the bodycam footage.

Lynch then threw the mask at an officer and began to swing the bottle in a striking motion, police said. Two officers tried to use their electronic control weapons, or tasers. He continued advancing toward the officers while swinging the bottle, and one officer fired his gun. Lynch was hit four times.

Officers tried to administer aid, but he died at the scene, police said.

Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis released the body-worn camera footage at a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Davis said the incident will likely take longer for the department to assess than other recent officer-involved shootings.

"The circumstances are different," said Davis, who noted that some incidents captured by police body-worn camera footage are more clear than others. "This one isn't exactly as sterile because there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on that the camera captures, and there's a lot going that our investigation will concentrate on that's not within the view of the cameras."

This was the second fatal police shooting by Fairfax County Police officers in 2022. Police officers have fired their weapons five times so far in 2022, compared to only once in 2021.

Davis said that Lynch's parents were shown the video footage before it was released to the public on Thursday.

Pat and Kathy Lynch, who have hired attorneys in the case, issued a statement on Thursday after the release of the body-worn camera footage.

"Our son, Aaron, was experiencing a severe mental health crisis on July 7. He was scared and asked for both of the 911 calls that were made that day," Pat and Kathy Lynch said in their statement. "We believe that the three police officers who answered the second 911 call could have, and should have, handled this far differently. To respond to Aaron’s mental health crisis by shooting him at all, let alone multiple times, cannot be justified.

The parents said they recognize that, at times, police officers face grave and unknown dangers in the line of duty. "But that was not the case for that call at our home regarding our son. Aaron was about 5’ 6”, slightly built, and holding just a bottle and a decorative mask," they said.

Pat and Kathy Lynch said in the statement that had they known there was any possibility that the police responding to the 911 call would use lethal force against their son during a mental health crisis, they would not have involved the police until a mental health counselor could be present.

Lynch was killed on the police department’s second visit to the home on the night of Thursday, July 7.

At about 7:11 p.m. that evening, officers went to the home for their first visit after a family friend called the police with concerns for his safety. The family friend said Lynch was throwing objects inside the home and pacing.

A designated co-responder unit arrived at the home. This team included an officer assigned to the Fairfax County Police Department's crisis intervention team and a clinician from the Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health, which provides mental health services and was previously known as the Merrifield Center.

Crisis intervention training for Fairfax County Police officers is a weeklong class designed to teach law enforcement how to safely deescalate situations with people experiencing mental health challenges.

Lynch left the residence prior to the team's arrival at 7:26 p.m., police said. The team remained in the area, trying to find Lynch. After they couldn't find Lynch, the co-responder unit then went to the McLean District Station to speak with Lynch's parents by telephone.

When they returned to the home after the second call at 8:34 p.m. on July 7, the clinician did not accompany the police officers.

"About an hour and a half later, that clinician had moved on to another location at the conclusion of his tour of duty to complete some administrative paperwork," Davis said. "That's the only reason why the clinician was not in a place where he was able to respond with us to the second call for service."

The Fairfax County Police Department is currently in the first phase of its co-responder program, where a crisis intervention team-trained police officer is paired with a mental health clinician.

In the first phase, the police department has the one clinician to help with people suffering from a mental health crisis. When the second phase goes into effect on Aug. 8, the police department will have two clinicians. By the fourth phase of the program, the police department will have 16 mental health clinicians, with eight on duty at any given time, Davis said.

So far in 2022, Davis said the Fairfax County Police Department has responded to 6,700 calls for service for people in mental or behavioral health crisis.

"We use force less than 1 percent of the time," he said.

On July 7, the person who placed the called again shortly after 8:30 p.m. was the boyfriend of Lynch’s twin sister, according to the 911 call released by the police. Lynch’s sister then got on the phone and told the emergency dispatcher that he had never had a breakdown like the one he was experiencing on July 7.

The sister also said he had no official diagnosis aside from anxiety and depression.

When police arrived after the second call, Lynch’s sister told the officers that her brother had instructed her to call 911, according to the bodycam footage.

The sister told police that Lynch is a transgender man who came out several years ago, according to the bodycam footage. “He’s been seeing a therapist ever since,” she told the police who had arrived on the scene.

Lynch had been living with family members to help him come to terms with his identity, she told the officers.

According to the bodycam footage, Lynch recently found out that a previous girlfriend had died, which made his condition worse, the sister said.

Before they went into the house, police explained to the sister that they could take him into custody and get him evaluated. But they warned her what this would involve, according to the bodycam footage.

“Beware, that’s kind of a bridge we can’t cross back because some people don’t like the police, and we have policies that if we take someone into custody, we have to search them, cuff them, put them in the cruiser," a police officer said.

The sister responded: "He did say call 911, so that gives me a little bit of hope."

According to police, the officer who fired his gun has been with the Fairfax County Police Department for 10 years and was assigned to the McLean District Station.

All three officers involved in the shooting have been placed on restrictive duty, according to department policy, while criminal and administrative investigations into the incident continue, along with a review by the county’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor.

"We hope our efforts to find out more about this incident will, in the future, help families in similar situations avoid such a tragic outcome," Lynch's parents said in their statement.

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