Fairfax County Cops Release Dashcam Video of 2009 Shooting of Bipolar Unarmed Veteran Over Ripping Flowers

David Masters of Fredericksburg was shot and killed by Fairfax County police Officer David Scott Ziants on Nov. 13, 2009, as Masters drove on Route 1 in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County. Masters was unarmed and had ripped some flowers out of a planter in front of a business, which led to the police pursuit.

Details of the shooting have not changed, but dashcam video shows part of what happened when a Fairfax County police officer shot and killed an unarmed driver.

Video of the shooting back on November 13, 2009 shows an officer trying to pull over Masters’ Chevy Blazer on Route 1 in Alexandria. But the driver, David Masters, does not stop.

Eventually, he was boxed in by traffic, but eventually starts moving again. That is when two officers, including 28-year-old officer David Ziants, move in with guns drawn.

Officer Ziants claimed he thought Masters was reaching for a gun.

Ziants fired twice and hit Masters once in the left shoulder with a shot that fatally pierced vital organs.

The Fairfax commonwealth’s attorney determined the shooting did not warrant criminal charges, but Fairfax County police fired Ziants a couple of years later for improper use of deadly force.

Fairfax police did not explain why they chose today, more than five years later, to release the video. In March, the police rejected a freedom of information act request from The Washington Post to allow a review of the investigative file in the case, also without explanation. In Virginia, law enforcement agencies may release, or withhold, any investigative information under state public information law, indefinitely.

In a statement accompanying the release, Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler said: “In an effort to continue with increasing our transparency and the public trust, I have exercised my discretion under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act by authorizing the release of the in-car video from the criminal investigation into the officer-involved shooting of David Masters that occurred in the Mount Vernon District on Friday, November 13, 2009.

Based on several requests, the video was provided to the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission and is posted here. In reaching my decision to release the in-car video, I considered the following factors:  the local criminal investigation has been completed; the U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation has been completed; and there is no pending or threatened civil litigation.”

Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh ruled in January 2010 that Ziants had not committed a crime, because Ziants believed that Masters was driving a stolen car, was reaching for a gun and had run over another officer, none of which was true. Ziants was allowed to remain on the force until May 2011, when then-Chief David M. Rohrer fired Ziants.

David Masters was 52, a former Army Green Beret and carpenter living on disability payments after a work accident, and had bipolar disorder, his ex-wife said. He was driving a blue-green Chevrolet Blazer with the license plate “F001″ up Route 1 from Fredericksburg when he apparently pulled over outside a landscaping business and ripped some flowers out of some planters. An employee confronted him, but Masters hopped in the Blazer, with several of his ex-wife’s puppies inside, and continued north.