Thursday, March 23, 2006

No Justice for Sal Today

This site is dedicated to the memory of our beloved son of 37 years, Dr. Salvatore J. Culosi. Sal was unjustly shot and killed by a member of the Fairfax County, VA police SWAT team on January 24, 2006. Sal was under investigation by Fairfax County police for supposedly taking sports bets. Police sent a fully-armed, paramilitary SWAT team to his home to serve a documents search warrant and killed him with a .45 Heckler & Koch handgun – a powerful weapon typically used by U.S. military forces in combat. Sal was alone, unarmed and cooperative outside his home - in plain view when he was shot and killed. He had no criminal history and did not own a weapon.

Sal was the most gentle and kindhearted human being. He had his whole life ahead of him. He was contributing to the community as an Optometrist. His practice at the WAL*MART’s in Warrenton and Manassas were established. His friends and patients are as saddened and outraged as we are that something so senseless could happen to our Sal.

A week ago today, our family decided we wanted to launch a blog site to keep the public informed on the status of the investigation into Sal’s death. For two months we’ve had no answers and we still don’t have answers. Our family and friends, Sal’s friends and patients and people we have never met from all over Fairfax County, VA and the country have come out of the woodwork wanting to help somehow right this terrible wrong. This site will provide resources for doing just that.

Our family was working really hard this morning - putting the finishing touches on the site so we could share it with you tomorrow - two months to the day that Sal was killed. Just before noon, we learned that Commonwealth Attorney, Robert Horan, would be announcing that charges would not be brought against the still unnamed officer who unjustly shot and killed Sal. Needless to say, we are devastated. We do not understand how Mr. Horan came to the conclusion that there is no evidence to bring criminal charges.

Our family is regrouping right now, but tomorrow, we will begin uploading more information to the site. Please stay tuned and come back! We will use this site to share what we learn with the public on exactly what happened to Sal.

There will be no Justice for Sal until the full details of what happened are publicly disclosed, those who are responsible are held accountable for their actions, and police policies and tactics are changed to prevent another senseless tragedy like this from happening again.

Please keep Sal and our family in your thoughts and prayers.

Salvatore J. and Anita Culosi
Proud Parents of Dr. Salvatore J. Culosi

4 comments:

**** said...

I'm outraged by Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Horan's determination that Fairfax County SWAT officer Deval V. Bullock is above the law after shooting and killing the unarmed Dr. Salvatore Culosi while serving a document search warrant in January.

This County-described "highly-trained officer" clearly showed recklessness and criminal negligence in his actions when he purposefully chose to place his finger on the trigger. He showed negligence when he purposefully chose to aim his gun at Dr. Culosi. He showed negligence by not only choosing to ignore his department's policies and training, but to purposefully ignore the most basic of gun safety rules that even children learn.

In fact, a review of the Virginia Magistrates Manual on Criminal Law
www.courts.state.va.us/ed/resources/magman/criminallaw.pdf clearly illustrates how even "accidental" shootings may be criminally negligent because a reasonably prudent person should realize what constitutes a dangerous act and should exercise greater care. Certainly an officer with 17 years experience would fall into the bucket of "a prudent person." Given examples like that, and similar shooting incidents involving civilians in the Commonwealth that have resulted in criminal charges, it's mind boggling to determine how Mr. Horan could have come to his decision.

The Commonwealth's Attorney has done the public a great disservice by failing to hold this officer responsible for his actions and to bring the issue in front of a jury. One can only hope the Fairfax County Police department, which is still conducting an internal review, won't allow officer Bullock to continue to serve in a capacity where he is able to interact with the public and make the same mistakes twice.

Windypundit said...

I've been following this story via Radley Balko's blog. It makes me sick the way Sal and your family have been treated. I hope that somehow, some way, everybody responsible gets what they've got coming.

David Jernigan said...

Being the 4yr old that rode thru the plateglass window and over the cars with bigwheels, handcuffed the annoying kid to a tree and had my cousin stripped and swimming in a flooded basement I was deeply upset when I heard what happened to my childhood friend. It is a tragedy and my heart goes out to you Sal and Anita and your family. If there is anything that my family can do for you please let me know Love to you all David Jernigan

mywriterssite said...

God bless, hang in there