WASHINGTON — Did Fairfax County police respond properly to a potentially dangerous situation, or did they overreact?
An internal review is expected to be completed this week into the June 14 Fairfax County police action in which an Iraq War veteran woke up to find three police officers standing in the bedroom of his Alexandria apartment.
Alex Horton was asleep in bed when police, with guns drawn, burst into his bedroom. He claims they pointed guns at his head.
The police were summoned when neighbors spotted Horton in the complex’s model apartment unit, unaware that building managers had temporarily moved him there while repairs were being made to his apartment.
Police responded to a call of “unlawful entry.”
Brad Carrutters, president of Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 — a police union, writes on a Facebook that “officers followed proper protocols.”
He says police had no idea what they might face and “correctly used their firearms to stabilize the situation,” he wrote on the social networking site.
But writing in The Washington Post, Horton has criticized the police action, branding it an example of a “troubling approach to law enforcement, nationwide.” Horton says the entry with guns drawn raised the risk of injury or death when the matter could have been resolved if police had checked with building managers or building security.
As a member of the Army’s 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Horton conducted raids in Iraq on the homes of high-value targets. He contends that actions like those of Fairfax County Police June 14 “has caused public trust in law enforcement to deteriorate.”
Fairfax County police have been conducting interviews in an internal inquiry to determine the facts of the case. The report is expected to be completed later this week and Police Chief Edwin Roessler is expected to deliver a statement on the inquiry’s findings.
