Parents of man slain by US Park Police say they will donate $5M payment to oppose police immunity

The parents of a man killed by U.S. Park Police in Northern Virginia in 2017 will donate their $5 million civil settlement to causes opposing qualified immunity for police, they said Friday.

Bijan Ghaisar was shot and killed by two U.S. Park Police officers in Fairfax County, Va., after he began driving away from the officers following a traffic crash on the George Washington Memorial Highway. Ghaisar was unarmed.

Ghaisar’s parents sued the Park Police in civil court in 2018, alleging that the shooting was improper and that the department acted wrongfully in preventing Ghaisar’s parents from seeing him while he was in the hospital.

The two officers who committed the shooting were charged with manslaughter, but their criminal cases were thrown out in 2020. The effort to prosecute them ended last year. They remain on the force.

The parents finalized a $5 million settlement with Park Police in the civil case on Friday. That money will be placed into a new entity to fight against qualified immunity, the legal framework that makes it difficult for police officers to be held responsible for actions they commit on the job.

“We’re going to work with lawmakers to overturn qualified immunity,” Bijan’s mother Kelly Ghaisar said at the Alexandria federal courthouse on Friday, according to The Washington Post. “That’s how we can get justice for Bijan.”

A previously setup nonprofit, the Bijan Ghaisar Foundation, could not be used for lobbying and advocacy purposes. The new organization will also advocate for policies to reduce gun violence, including police use of force training, Bijan’s father James Ghaisar said.

“Our goal is to save lives from here on,” James Ghaisar said. “We invite everybody in this country who’s concerned about gun violence to join us. Or we can join them, whatever we have to do.”

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