The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 22 is slated to approve four agreements with federal and state law-enforcement agencies.
Those pacts will include:
• A reciprocal agreement with between the Fairfax County Police Department and Virginia State Police covering their respective responsibilities during the upcoming Police Unity Tour.
Law-enforcement officers and their supporters from May 10 through 12 will bicycle from central Virginia to the District of Columbia to raise awareness about officers who have died in the line of duty.
The agreement will cover those agencies’ duties as far as escorting support vehicles and processions of cyclists. Fairfax County officers working with Virginia State Police teams will have the same powers, rights, benefits, privileges and immunities from liability as when operating in Fairfax County. These will include, but are not limited to, authority to direct vehicular traffic and control intersections.
Cyclists will begin this year’s ride May 10 by pedaling from Richmond to Charlottesville, then cycle between Charlottesville and Warrenton on May 11 and finish up on May 12 by riding from Warrenton to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. The final day’s route will take the cyclists through Fairfax County, the city of Fairfax and Arlington County.
Officer Patrick Montuore of the Florham Park (N.J.) Police Department organized the first Police Unity Tour, which was held in May 1997. Montuore, who later became that department’s chief, retired in 2015.
• A High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area state and local task-force agreement between the Fairfax County Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that will assign a county detective to the Northern Virginia Financial Initiative Task Force.
The detective will work full-time for at least two years out of the task force’s Northern Virginia office and be responsible primarily for following-up on and investigating suspicious-activity reporting of financial information and transactions linked to possible illicit-drug trafficking.
Under the pact, county police and the DEA will share information to suppress and disrupt drug trafficking, gather and report intelligence data regarding narcotics activities, and conduct undercover operations associated with the culture of illegal narcotics and drug trafficking.
Through its participation in the task force, county police will be able to recover some overtime costs and fixed expenses, such as rental vehicles and radios.
• A similar agreement with the DEA that will assign a county police detective to a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force. This detective also will work full-time out of the task force’s Northern Virginia office and primarily be responsible for investigating larger-scale narcotics cases that are connected with Fairfax County.
• Another pact with the DEA that will assign a county police detective to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force. This detective’s main assignment will be interdicting large-scale contraband – including narcotics, weapons and money tied to organized crime – going through regional airports with origins or destinations in Northern Virginia.