So the officers, Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya, are now suing the Interior Department and the official in charge of handling their case, Deputy Assistant Secretary Lisa Branum, in federal court. The officers aren’t explicitly seeking reinstatement, only a ruling on their pending case. They accuse Interior of ignoring standard disciplinary procedures and failing to provide a decision “at the earliest practicable date,” as federal law requires.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington on July 10, also alleges that the Park Police never conducted a standard internal investigation of the Nov. 17, 2017, killing of Ghaisar, a 25-year-old accountant who worked for his father in McLean.
Vinyard, 42, and Amaya, 44, have never spoken publicly about the case, and declined to comment Tuesday on their lawsuit, which marks the latest turn in a fraught chapter for the agency. The high-profile killing that began with a police pursuit on the George Washington Memorial Parkway prompted reviews by federal and local law enforcement and drew the attention of Congress.
Video shows Vinyard and Amaya fired 10 shots into Ghaisar’s Jeep Grand Cherokee as he tried to drive away from them after their chase veered into a neighborhood in the area of Fort Hunt. Lawyers for the officers argued that Ghaisar was driving at Amaya and the gunfire was in self-defense.
Vinyard and Amaya were indicted on a charge of manslaughter in Fairfax County in October 2020, and a federal judge dismissed the case in October 2021. A month later, Interior notified Vinyard and Amaya it was moving to fire them. The officers filed a response in February 2022, and nothing has happened since, the lawsuit states.
“While the [Interior] Department refuses to act,” attorneys Daniel S. Crowley and Katelyn A. Clarke wrote for the officers, “the officers continue to remain on administrative leave with significant career and financial consequences, including damage to their reputation, loss of overtime pay, and the ongoing stress” caused by the unresolved employment action. Crowley represented Vinyard in the criminal case.
The Interior Department and Branum declined to comment Tuesday.
Ghaisar’s family filed a civil suit against the Interior Department and received a $5 million settlement last year. James and Kelly Ghaisar, Bijan’s parents, said they would use the money to lobby Congress to widen the path for legal accountability in officer-involved shootings. Police officers who are found to be reasonably performing their legal duties are generally granted immunity from lawsuits and criminal charges.
Kelly Ghaisar said of the officers’ suit, “I find this filing appalling.” She said the officers “not only were not prosecuted but rewarded with years of paid vacation while Bijan was shot in the head for a fender bender,” and “the fact that Amaya and Vinyard are with their families, with full pay and benefits, and not in jail is a middle finger to justice.”
The Park Police officers’ union offered their full support for the officers.
“The Department of Interior and the National Park Service are no different than any other employer that is bound by labor-management rules and regulations. They cannot hide from their responsibilities and obligations,” said Kenneth Spencer, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police chapter of the Park Police. “Their mistreatment of the two officers was shameless and not in accordance with our labor management agreement or labor law.”
Vinyard joined the Park Police in 2007, and Amaya was hired in 2009, the Park Police have said. Vinyard ranked first in his graduating class, according to the lawsuit, and Amaya has received two awards for saving lives.
The episode began about 7:30 p.m. on a Friday as Ghaisar drove his Grand Cherokee south on the parkway toward Alexandria. At some point north of the city, Ghaisar suddenly stopped in a lane of traffic and was hit from behind by a Toyota Corolla being driven as an Uber ride-share, the driver told police. But instead of stopping to inspect the damage or exchange information, Ghaisar drove away, the driver reported. The Corolla driver pursued the Jeep for a short time but then pulled over with his front end severely damaged, FBI reports show.
Vinyard and Amaya, riding together, were dispatched to the call since the Park Police have jurisdiction over the parkway. Recordings show they were initially told the Jeep was the striking vehicle, but the dispatcher corrected herself and said the Jeep was struck. The officers spotted the Jeep in Old Town Alexandria, then followed it as it drove south into Fairfax, where a Fairfax police lieutenant with an in-car camera joined the pursuit.
The Fairfax police video shows that Ghaisar stopped once in the right lane, and that the Park Police officers stopped ahead of him in the left lane, and Amaya ran at the Jeep with his gun drawn. Ghaisar drove off. Ghaisar pulled off the parkway minutes later, and the officers stopped ahead of him again, and again Amaya ran toward the Jeep with his gun drawn. Again, the video shows, Ghaisar drove off.
At the intersection of Alexandria Avenue and Fort Hunt Road, Ghaisar came to a stop sign. Vinyard pulled his marked Park Police vehicle in front of the Jeep and Amaya climbed out. The video shows Ghaisar began to roll his Jeep around the police vehicle, and Amaya opened fire, followed by Vinyard. Ghaisar was struck four times in the head and died 10 days later.
The FBI took over the investigation of the case, and two years later the Justice Department declined to charge the officers. The department said in a statement it could not “prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the two USPP officers committed willful violations of the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute when they shot Mr. Ghaisar.”
Fairfax County prosecutors picked up the case in late 2019, and Vinyard and Amaya were indicted in October 2020. Senior U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton dismissed the charges in October 2021, saying the officers’ decision to shoot Ghaisar was “necessary and proper under the circumstances.”
In November 2021, the Interior Department began its own disciplinary process, the lawsuit states, even though Interior and Park Police rules delegate personnel matters to the chief of the Park Police. But then-Park Police Chief Pamela A. Smith told officers that Interior had completely bypassed her and violated the collective bargaining agreement with the officers’ union, the lawsuit states, and urged the union to support the officers. Smith left the Park Police in 2022 and is now the D.C. police chief.
The officers claim that Interior’s case to fire them made improper use of sealed records from the civil suit against the department, and failed to mention the rulings from the Justice Department or Judge Hilton in favor of Vinyard and Amaya.
Crowley, Vinyard’s lawyer, reached out to Branum and the lawyer for Interior in May about the officers’ status but received no indication that a ruling was forthcoming. In addition, the inspector general for Interior launched an investigation into the shooting in 2022 at the request of Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), but no report was ever publicly released.
“Agencies typically take a month or two to issue decisions in cases like this,” Crowley said in an email Tuesday. “We’ve been waiting for more than two years. The officers’ supervisor and their training instructor both say they followed their training and all Park Police policies. We can only assume [Interior] has not issued a decision because they have no grounds to fire the officers and cannot justify bypassing Chief Smith or proposing discipline without any internal investigation.”
Park Police and Interior officials have declined to answer questions about the officers’ status for more than a year, and for years have refused to discuss the status of any internal investigation.
The lawsuit notes that Vinyard and Amaya “have no other recourse but to ask this Court to order [Interior] to issue a final decision on their proposed removal,” because the officers cannot file an employee grievance or pursue arbitration without a ruling.
