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Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
40 years ago: police shooting in Herndon sparked a riot
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40 years ago
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Date: September 09, 2014 11:21AM
40 years ago: police shooting in Herndon sparked a riot
Anniversary coincides with death and protests in Ferguson, Mo.
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140904/NEWS/140909622/1117/40-years-ago-police-shooting-in-herndon-sparked-a-riot&template=fairfaxTimes
The recent police shooting and ensuing violence in Ferguson, Mo., happened to coincide with the 40-year anniversary of a similar event in Herndon that also resulted in protests and rioting.
The shooting was later found to be ‘justifiable homicide’ by a grand jury.
According to witness testimony and published reports, on Aug. 22, 1974, Fairfax County police Officer John R. Mueller, 31, an eight-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, followed Felix Kenneth Rorls, 26, of Clifton into the 7-Eleven on Elden Street in Herndon following what he believed to have been a traffic violation. Inside the convenience store, Mueller asked Rorls to provide identification. They exchanged words and then the two became entangled in a scuffle. Witnesses testified that Mueller pushed Rorls against the glass of a refrigerated beer display case, and during the struggle, Rorls was able to take possession of Mueller’s nightstick, striking Mueller with it twice in the head.
“That’s about when I came in,” said Daryl C. Smith, who today is the chief of police in Purcellville, but then was a 24-year-old rookie and the first and only African American police officer on the Herndon police force.
“I was working the 4 p.m. shift and was on patrol in the area around 4:30 when I was flagged down by someone who said an officer needed help inside the 7-Eleven,” Smith said. “I pulled into the parking lot, saw a Fairfax County police car and a lady was yelling to me ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ I entered the store and the young man and the officer were having a physical altercation. The next thing I heard was shots being fired.”
Medical examiner reports say Mueller fired his gun repeatedly, hitting Rorls four times. Rorls was pronounced dead upon arrival at 5:02 p.m. at Fairfax Hospital.
“I was in the store when the shots were fired,” Smith said. “Back then, Herndon and Fairfax County police shared the same radio frequency and immediately after the gunshots, the officer asked me to call his supervisor and ask him to come to the scene.”
Smith said that as forensic crews were processing the crime scene at the 7-Eleven, large crowds of African Americans began gathering around it. “Back then there was a very large population of African Americans living in the apartments in that area,” said Smith. “Some of those apartment complexes were 85-90 percent black. Crowds that had heard about what happened began to gather around the 7-Eleven and the Dulles Park Shopping Center, and they started to throw rocks and bottles at the police. At that point they were throwing rocks at me, and I had to put on riot gear. On South Elden Street, some African American teens had an altercation with a white male driver and they broke his windows and messed up his car, and some stores in the shopping center had been damaged and looted.”
Jim Dooley, 64, now retired, was a police officer with the Fairfax County police in 1974 and remembers being called out to what looked like the beginning of a full-fledged riot.
“I was only 24 and working out of Franconia,” he said. “What I recall was that it was the middle of the night and several uniformed officers, including myself, were outfitted and rounded up and we rode in a school bus out to Herndon from headquarters, in case there was going to be major trouble. Luckily, we just sat there for a few hours and wound up just going home.”
According to Dooley, Smith and published reports, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F. Horan eventually negotiated a truce with the crowd, which by around 10 p.m. had grown to more than 300 people. Horan stopped them from throwing bottles filled with gasoline onto the rooftops of stores in the Dulles Park Shopping Center, where police were stationed. By the early-morning hours of Aug. 23, the rioting had ended, the crowds had dispersed, and police were able to leave.
“It was intense there for a bit,” Smith said. “It was especially awkward for me, as both an African American and a police officer. I knew and grew up with many of the people who were rioting. That was very awkward, but it also helped me somewhat, because they knew me. Back then police did not have much outreach to the public and I don’t think police were seen as people. They were just symbols of authority. Today in Herndon, and I think throughout the county, that has changed. It’s a different world now than it was then.”
Anniversary coincides with death and protests in Ferguson, Mo.
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140904/NEWS/140909622/1117/40-years-ago-police-shooting-in-herndon-sparked-a-riot&template=fairfaxTimes
The recent police shooting and ensuing violence in Ferguson, Mo., happened to coincide with the 40-year anniversary of a similar event in Herndon that also resulted in protests and rioting.
The shooting was later found to be ‘justifiable homicide’ by a grand jury.
According to witness testimony and published reports, on Aug. 22, 1974, Fairfax County police Officer John R. Mueller, 31, an eight-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, followed Felix Kenneth Rorls, 26, of Clifton into the 7-Eleven on Elden Street in Herndon following what he believed to have been a traffic violation. Inside the convenience store, Mueller asked Rorls to provide identification. They exchanged words and then the two became entangled in a scuffle. Witnesses testified that Mueller pushed Rorls against the glass of a refrigerated beer display case, and during the struggle, Rorls was able to take possession of Mueller’s nightstick, striking Mueller with it twice in the head.
“That’s about when I came in,” said Daryl C. Smith, who today is the chief of police in Purcellville, but then was a 24-year-old rookie and the first and only African American police officer on the Herndon police force.
“I was working the 4 p.m. shift and was on patrol in the area around 4:30 when I was flagged down by someone who said an officer needed help inside the 7-Eleven,” Smith said. “I pulled into the parking lot, saw a Fairfax County police car and a lady was yelling to me ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ I entered the store and the young man and the officer were having a physical altercation. The next thing I heard was shots being fired.”
Medical examiner reports say Mueller fired his gun repeatedly, hitting Rorls four times. Rorls was pronounced dead upon arrival at 5:02 p.m. at Fairfax Hospital.
“I was in the store when the shots were fired,” Smith said. “Back then, Herndon and Fairfax County police shared the same radio frequency and immediately after the gunshots, the officer asked me to call his supervisor and ask him to come to the scene.”
Smith said that as forensic crews were processing the crime scene at the 7-Eleven, large crowds of African Americans began gathering around it. “Back then there was a very large population of African Americans living in the apartments in that area,” said Smith. “Some of those apartment complexes were 85-90 percent black. Crowds that had heard about what happened began to gather around the 7-Eleven and the Dulles Park Shopping Center, and they started to throw rocks and bottles at the police. At that point they were throwing rocks at me, and I had to put on riot gear. On South Elden Street, some African American teens had an altercation with a white male driver and they broke his windows and messed up his car, and some stores in the shopping center had been damaged and looted.”
Jim Dooley, 64, now retired, was a police officer with the Fairfax County police in 1974 and remembers being called out to what looked like the beginning of a full-fledged riot.
“I was only 24 and working out of Franconia,” he said. “What I recall was that it was the middle of the night and several uniformed officers, including myself, were outfitted and rounded up and we rode in a school bus out to Herndon from headquarters, in case there was going to be major trouble. Luckily, we just sat there for a few hours and wound up just going home.”
According to Dooley, Smith and published reports, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F. Horan eventually negotiated a truce with the crowd, which by around 10 p.m. had grown to more than 300 people. Horan stopped them from throwing bottles filled with gasoline onto the rooftops of stores in the Dulles Park Shopping Center, where police were stationed. By the early-morning hours of Aug. 23, the rioting had ended, the crowds had dispersed, and police were able to leave.
“It was intense there for a bit,” Smith said. “It was especially awkward for me, as both an African American and a police officer. I knew and grew up with many of the people who were rioting. That was very awkward, but it also helped me somewhat, because they knew me. Back then police did not have much outreach to the public and I don’t think police were seen as people. They were just symbols of authority. Today in Herndon, and I think throughout the county, that has changed. It’s a different world now than it was then.”
Re: 40 years ago: police shooting in Herndon sparked a riot
Posted by:
Zoo Keeper
()
Date: September 09, 2014 01:36PM
Blacks in America are now equivalent to the Sacred Monkeys of India. Free to do whatever they want without fear of punishment or retribution. They are animals and cannot be held to human standards.