Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano was all ready to go on April 17, prepped to preen in front of the TV cameras and spew vitriol on a Fairfax County police officer who had been indicted by a grand jury in the Feb. 22 fatal shooting of an alleged shoplifter in Tysons.
The grand jury, however, didn’t give him the opportunity.
After having the details laid out (and presumably viewing body-cam footage that the rest of us also have seen), those county residents who were called in to do their civic duty determined that the facts of the case didn’t rise to even the relatively low standard for an indictment.
(So much for the supposed truism that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich …)
One would have hoped against hope that the county’s top elected law-enforcement official would have come out and said he respected, and would abide by, the decision made by his fellow citizens.
That, of course, is not how Steve Descano rolls.
Through a written statement, he instead not only expressed his contempt for the result, but intimated he might try to use his office to get around the action and find a way to haul the officer into court nonetheless.
The shooting death of the suspect – Timothy McCree Johnson, 37, of Washington, D.C. – was indeed lamentable. But the petulant response to the grand jury’s action by the commonwealth’s attorney, who is facing a challenge in the Democratic primary this June, shows once again why it’s hard to trust him to be a fair arbiter when it comes to issues involving law-enforcement personnel. What appears, from the outside at least, to be a reflexive anti-cop attitude has been on display since Descano benefited from piles of outside, left-wing cash to slip into office largely unvetted more than three years ago.
Who else comes out looking bad after the grand jury’s action? County Police Chief Kevin Davis, who, facing the wrath of the NAACP and other groups, seemingly looked for any excuse to fire the police officer before the situation had played itself out. Those elected officials within county government who also rushed in and made statements about the incident in an effort to curry favor with activists also did the community no favors.
One surmises the officer is going to get his job back and/or sue everybody connected with that rush to judgment. Words and actions, after all, have consequences.
