Family of man shot by Fairfax County police files $20 million wrongful death lawsuit

The family of a man shot to death in a McLean, Virginia, home in July 2022 has filed a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Fairfax County police chief and three officers, claiming they used excessive force against an unarmed man who was in the midst of a mental health crisis.

According to the lawsuit filed by the parents and sister of Jasper Aaron Lynch (called Aaron) on July 7, 2022, Lynch’s parents asked a family friend to call 911 because he was alone in the family home and having a mental health crisis.

While Lynch’s mother, Kathy, waited for help, she called a non-emergency police number and said she believed her son’s crisis was due to the death of a loved one. According to the lawsuit filed by attorney Patrick Regan, “she specifically told them that he had no history of violence and that there were no weapons in the Lynch home.”

A footnote in the lawsuit stated that the 26-year-old was transgender: “Aaron is biologically a woman and was known by the name ‘Alayne’ for the first twenty years of his life.”

A Fairfax County police officer trained in crisis intervention and a psychiatrist arrived at the home and searched it with Kathy’s permission, but were unable to locate Aaron and left.

Shortly thereafter, Aaron’s sister and her boyfriend arrived at the family home. Within minutes, the sister’s boyfriend called 911 again at Aaron’s request and asked for psychiatric help. He said Aaron was throwing and breaking things in the house.

When police arrived the second time, three officers with no specialized training in crisis intervention arrived without a clinician. The lawsuit says the three officers “did not speak with anyone who had specialized training in mental health, nor did they wait for someone with that background to arrive at the Lynch family home.”

According to the lawsuit, Aaron charged toward officers with a wine bottle and a decorative wooden mask in his hand. When he threw the wooden mask across the room, officers used a Taser on him. When Aaron tried to run out the open front door, he was shocked again.

As Aaron tried to run out the door again, an officer shot him four times. While another officer detained Aaron, “the officer executed him by firing a fifth and final shot into his neck at nearly point-blank range.”

Aaron died at the scene of the accident.

The lawsuit alleges that police were aware that Aaron was under psychological stress, but their actions “showed indifference toward Aaron and represented a total disregard for all caution, amounting to a total disregard for Aaron’s safety.”

The lawsuit alleges that Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis had a duty to train his officers in the use of deadly force and how to deal with people in mental health crises.

Last April, Fairfax County District Attorney Steve Descano said the shooting was legally justified because the officer had reasonable grounds to believe the other officer might have been struck or injured by the broken bottle.

WTOP reached out to the Fairfax County Police Department for comment. A county spokesperson contacted by WTOP said, “Fairfax County cannot comment on pending litigation.”

The lawsuit seeks ten million dollars in compensatory damages and ten million dollars in punitive damages.

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