Press Releases

U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) today issued the following statement on the Justice Department’s announcement that it would close the investigation into the November 17, 2017 killing of 25-year-old Northern Virginia accountant Bijan Ghaisar by U.S. Park Police without filing criminal charges:

“This is not justice.

“The Justice Department failed our community for two years by withholding answers about why police killed Bijan Ghaisar, but this final failure is the worst of all.

“I cannot imagine the pain which my friends Kelly and James, Bijan’s parents, must feel at being told that the police who killed their son without apparent justification did not violate his constitutional rights when all available evidence including video of the event contradicts that.

“For two years the F.B.I., Justice Department, Department of the Interior, and U.S. Park Police have refused to answer the question, ‘why did Bijan Ghaisar die?’ It beggars belief that these agencies could conduct the longest and least transparent of investigations and somehow leave that question even more obscured than it was when they started.

“I am not satisfied by the Justice Department’s statement and I do not believe my colleagues will be either. This will not end here.”

Beyer represents the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. where the police pursuit and shooting of Bijan Ghaisar took place on the evening of November 17, 2017. He has worked with Ghaisar’s family in the two years to seek answers about the incident from the federal agencies involved.