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Washington Post: Grassley, Warner demand meeting with FBI in Bijan Ghaisar shooting case

Grassley, Warner demand meeting with FBI in Bijan Ghaisar shooting case

BY TOM JACKMAN - 11/20/2019 

Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) continued their campaign Wednesday for answers in the 2017 killing of Bijan Ghaisar by two U.S. Park Police officers, which the Justice Department decided last week would not result in federal charges for the officers. The two senators requested a briefing from FBI Director Christopher A. Wray about the case, and they also sought answers in a series of letters they have sent the FBI beginning last year, which the FBI has previously declined to provide.

In addition, three members of Congress have asked the FBI to allow the release of the 911 call made at the beginning of the incident, which may shed light on why the officers repeatedly approached Ghaisar’s Jeep Grand Cherokee with guns drawn after Ghaisar left the scene of a minor fender bender in Alexandria on Nov. 17, 2017, then fired at him 10 times as he drove away from them. Ghaisar was struck four times in the head and died 10 days later.

“Investigations into the use of deadly force must be handled in a way that reinforces public confidence in law enforcement,” Grassley and Warner wrote to Wray. “Despite nearly two years of investigating this incident in which considerable FBI resources were used, the Ghaisar family, Congress, and the general public still do not have all the answers. The FBI needs to provide a full and thorough account of the events that led to Mr. Ghaisar’s untimely death.”

“We are enormously grateful to Sens. Grassley and Warner,” said Kelly Ghaisar, Bijan Ghaisar’s mother, “for their relentless efforts to get the answers that have been denied to us for so long. Their commitment to transparency and justice for Bijan has given us hope and comforted us in the darkest of times.”

Ghaisar, 25, was an accountant and Northern Virginia native who was driving south on the George Washington Memorial Parkway when he stopped in a lane of traffic about 7:27 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2017. His Jeep was struck from behind by a Toyota Corolla being driven for Uber, with a passenger in the back, a Park Police report shows. The driver told The Washington Post that the Jeep’s driver then drove off without speaking to him and that the passenger dialed 911. The call was routed to the Arlington emergency communications center, which has declined to release the tape on advice of the Justice Department. The passenger has declined to comment.

In a letter sent Monday to the FBI, Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and wrote: “Given that the Department of Justice review of the case is concluded, there should be no impediment to its disclosure now. As you know, we found the two-year period it took to resolve the case unacceptable and remain concerned with the result. … The people of the National Capital Region demand high transparency and accountability standards from their local government and law enforcement entities. We ask that you allow the local entities to publicly release the 9-1-1 records affiliated with the Ghaisar case.”