Kilmer Middle School was briefly put on alert this afternoon (Tuesday) while Fairfax County police searched Tysons for suspects in an alleged theft and hit-and-run at Nordstrom Rack.
Officers with the Fairfax County Police Department’s Tysons Urban Team responded to the clothing store at 8027 Leesburg Pike around 1:25 p.m. for a reported larceny, though an officer initially told the dispatcher that there was “no confirmed theft.”
The FCPD says four individuals fled when they saw the officers, first running on foot before getting into a vehicle and hitting three police cruisers.
According to scanner traffic, the individuals — described as three men and one woman — bailed out of the vehicle around 1:30 p.m. An officer then confirmed that there was a larceny, but it was not yet known whether it was petit or grand larceny.
A handgun was found in the vehicle, police said.
During the search, which involved K9 units and a helicopter, the police department advised that nearby Kilmer Middle School be secured with students scheduled to be released at 2:15 p.m.
“An area Middle School was briefly put on an elevated alert due to the fleeing suspects,” the FCPD said. “The school is no longer on an elevated alert.”
An officer confirmed at 2:26 p.m. that all four people had been taken into custody. Two of them were “evaluated for minor injuries,” police said.
The FCPD says the incident was a grand larceny, which is defined in Virginia as commercial thefts involving goods worth $1,000 or more. Charges haven’t been filed yet.
“Charging information will become available at a later time,” the FCPD said.
Photo via Google Maps
The Fairfax County Police Department is partnering with Zencity to roll out a community survey tool that markets itself as a way to “reimagine” local policing.
Chief of Police Kevin Davis described Zencity Blockwise as a tool to measure public sentiment and build trust in the community at a press conference yesterday (Monday) to provide more information about the new countywide initiative. He was joined by Zencity Chief Strategy Officer Michael Simon.
“When we partnered with Zencity, we wanted to take that next step and better capture community feedback, community sentiment,” Davis said. “And we want to make sure that the things we do as a police department are in line with the expectations of our broader community.”
Zencity Blockwise is already used by other police departments across the country, including Chicago and San Diego, but it represents an evolution of public engagement tools utilized by FCPD.
Davis noted that just over a year ago, FCPD piloted My90, a community performance feedback tool designed to measure residents’ satisfaction with FCPD following an interaction with law enforcement.
However, Davis explained that, unlike that previous survey, Blockwise captures “sentiment about policing that is not pursuant or following a police interaction.”
Instead, the tool works to limit FCPD’s “blindspots” around residents’ everyday needs by increasing public access to local law enforcement and providing a platform for citizens across a vast and diverse jurisdiction to voice their concerns, according to Davis.
“The way to ensure that we have a more representative voice in the community is to reach as many people as humanly possible,” Davis said. “So people who don’t typically attend community meetings, people who don’t typically have interactions with their police departments, but they certainly do feel a certain way about public safety and about their police department.”
To assist in the FCPD’s goal of increasing its reach, Zencity uses census data to divide Fairfax County into its eight patrol regions and serve randomized digital advertisements to all devices across the county, according to Simon.
The advertisements encourage residents to submit an anonymous two-minute feedback survey that asks open-ended questions about the FCPD in eight different languages.
“You’ll see an advertisement that solicits your feedback wherever you may be on the internet,” Simon said. “That ad is targeted at you because we need you to fill a demographic and geographic quota that represents what the census data tells us about each individual neighborhood.”
The FCPD will then analyze the results to more effectively address the community’s most urgent needs based on the voluntary information provided by county residents. Drawing a parallel to other law enforcement technology that tracks local crime patterns to lower crime rates, Simon explained that Zencity measures three key indicators: fear of crime, trust and priority.
After enough data has been collected to establish a baseline, the survey results will be continually updated and posted to the FCPD’s open data portal, which already has data related to subjects such as use of force and internal retention rates, according to Davis, who emphasized a commitment to community transparency.
Since launching on Thursday, June 1, the survey has already received around 300 responses. Simon said Zencity hopes to garner 1,500 responses every month.
He also hinted that Zencity and FCPD will potentially pilot end-of-survey questions about respondents’ contact information, but for now, the service will be “one-directional.”
Fairfax County is winding down its groundbreaking experiment with self-driving public transportation.
The autonomous, electric Relay shuttle will cease operations after June 23, concluding almost three years of bussing passengers around the Dunn Loring Metro station and the Mosaic District in Merrifield.
Since launching on Oct. 22, 2020, the shuttle has provided 356 trips, as of last Thursday (June 1). While attracting riders was a struggle at times, the pilot project was successful at demonstrating the potential and challenges of using the technology for public transit, Fairfax County Department of Transportation Chief of Operations John Zarbo says.
“I would think we would determine it as a success,” Zarbo told FFXnow. “Our ultimate goal of the project was sort of to be a test bed and to learn about the technology and sort of have an infrastructure area that we could see what the vehicle did. Ridership was extremely important to us, but it wasn’t everything…There was so much more to it.”
The first state-funded test of its kind in Virginia, the Relay pilot was intended to last just one year but got funding for multiple extensions, as the county and Dominion Energy, which owns the vehicle, waited out the hit that public transportation took nationally during the pandemic.
According to Zarbo, ridership has increased in recent months as the sense of COVID-19 as an emergency has faded. He also attributes the uptick to changes to the shuttle’s route and schedule that took effect on Dec. 5.
Originally, the shuttle traveled from the Dunn Loring Metro down Merrilee Drive, crossed Route 29 onto Eskridge Road, and looped around Merrifield Cinema Drive to stop by the Mosaic District’s Barnes and Noble.
The project team expanded the route to include three stops along District Avenue, giving them the chance to see how the vehicle handled a busier street.
“The vehicle does really well interacting with the pedestrians, which was a concern of ours at the beginning, but it did really well adjusting and driving autonomously on its own with very little interaction from the safety steward,” Zarbo said, referring to the on-board operator who assists riders and can take manual control if needed.
The current schedule of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday also “definitely worked better” than the original Monday to Thursday timeline, according to Zarbo, though the county wasn’t able to get approval for Saturdays.
The vehicle technology, provided by EasyMile, also improved throughout the pilot. A software upgrade enabled the shuttle to better navigate vegetation so it didn’t detect every overhanging tree branch as an object to be avoided.
Though there were some issues with drivers illegally passing the 10-mph shuttle, there were no reported crashes or breakdowns — not even after the Mosaic District introduced self-driving food delivery robots this spring, Zarbo says. Transit signal priority at some intersections, including Route 29, gave the vehicle extra time to cross.
With funds running out at the end of June, the county is starting to consider ways it can build off the pilot. Future projects could focus on human service agencies, such as the Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health or the Inova Schar Cancer Institute.
The pilot suggested that autonomous public transit would be most effective in a relatively self-contained area, like a school or office campus, Zarbo said.
“It’s challenging to have a vehicle operate autonomously on a road that is managed by a bunch of different entities,” he said, noting that Relay traveled roads owned by the county, state, Metro and Mosaic District developer Edens. “When you go to cut the grass or trim trees, you’re working with all those agencies in order to get approval.”
FCDOT is also looking at the Franconia and Springfield area for another project, though funding hasn’t been identified yet.
For now, the county is encouraging community members to try out Relay — and contribute to a survey conducted by George Mason University — before it goes offline.
“You still have a couple of weeks to ride it,” FCDOT spokesperson Robin Geiger said. “I’ve ridden it and it’s really fun.”
Spy Robert Hanssen, a former Vienna resident who passed along secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia via a nearby park, died yesterday (Monday) in a Colorado federal prison.
Hanssen, 79, was an FBI counterintelligence agent who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for passing classified information to Soviet (later Russian) intelligence.
Hanssen was found unresponsive in his cell yesterday and pronounced dead later that day. AP reported that he is believed to have died of natural causes.
Hanssen used Foxstone Park in Vienna as a dead drop location for passing along classified information. He was arrested at the park in February 2001.
According to the Fairfax County Park Authority, Hanssen sold classified secrets on at least 20 different occasions over 15 years.
At the time of his arrest, Hanssen was caught leaving a package underneath a park bridge. The bridge was discovered to have been a site for several “dead drops,” or exchanges of confidential information. In June 2001, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 espionage-related charges. He was sentenced in May 2002 to life in prison without parole. He was sent to the supermax unit of the U.S. federal prison in Florence, Colorado, to begin serving his sentence.
Hanssen’s actions were later dramatized in the movie “Breach,” which filmed some scenes at Foxstone Park.
Dulles Toll Road Ramp to Beltway Closed Overnight — “Between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. starting Monday, June 5, and continuing nightly through Friday, June 9, 495 NEXT project crews will close the ramp from the westbound Dulles Toll Road to northbound I-495. The nightly ramp closure is necessary to safely allow crews to conduct joint repairs at the top of the ramp to the Beltway lanes.” [VDOT]
Metro Halves Fares for SNAP Recipients — “Low-income residents who are enrolled in SNAP benefits will qualify for a new Metro half-off fare discount. The program, called Metro Lift, starts June 20…The transit agency estimates more than 90,000 riders will benefit from Metro Lift, which is estimated to cost about $4 million, but is expected to generate an additional 1.6 million trips.” [DCist]
FCPS Seeks to Address Crowding at Glasgow MS — “Glasgow Middle School Principal Victor Powell is planning to implement several strategies to address overcrowded hallways and unsafe bathrooms at the school by fall 2023…Several parents said their students are afraid to go to the bathroom at school because of what goes on inside, such as fights, vaping, and vandalism.” [Annandale Today]
Tysons Hotelier Returns to Fortune 500 — “Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) jumped back this year into the Fortune 500 following a two-year absence, showing that demand for travel and accommodations continue to grow in a dramatic way since the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic.” A total of 19 D.C. area companies made the list, which is based on fiscal year revenue. [Washington Business Journal]
Capital Bikeshare Ridership Hits All-Time High — “Capital Bikeshare had its highest ridership month of all time in May with more than 428,000 rides, signaling a return to normalcy after the pandemic. It beats the previous record of 408,000 rides set back in September 2018.” [DCist]
Renovations of Richmond Highway Schools Finished — “Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) joined elected officials, school staff, students and community members May 25 in celebrating the completion of capital projects at three schools…Back-to-back ribbon cuttings were held at West Potomac High School, Hybla Valley Elementary School and Washington Mill Elementary School.” [On the MoVe]
Funding for Richmond Highway BRT Recommended — “It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the overall projected cost of $900 million, but the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission has agreed to kick in $20 million to support creation of a bus-rapid-transit system between Fort Belvoir and the Huntington Metro station in the Route 1 corridor.” [Gazette Leader]
Early Fourth of July Fireworks Planned in McLean — “WE’VE GOT A DATE! Our Community Independence Day Fireworks Celebration will be on Saturday, July 1, from 6:30-10:30 p.m. at Langley High School There will be food trucks, music, giveaways and more! Fireworks begin at approximately 9:15 p.m.” [McLean Community Center/Twitter]
It’s Tuesday — Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Northwest wind 8 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. At night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 58. North wind 6 to 9 mph. [Weather.gov]
Pickleball courts may be in store for a warehouse on Tyco Road, a still-industrial section of the Tysons West neighborhood.
A new commercial building permit application was submitted to Fairfax County on March 16, calling for a one-story addition with six pickleball courts at 8520 Tyco Road.
At this point, the facility exists more in theory than reality. A leasing contact for the 90,000-square-foot property confirmed that the owner is “entertaining” the idea of pickleball, but no lease has been signed yet.
The contact said they couldn’t otherwise comment, including on what company made the offer.
Just northeast of the Spring Hill Metro station, the surrounding area is dominated by warehouses and auto dealerships, with minimal green space beyond the small Great Lawn Park behind the Adaire apartments.
However, the adjacent strip of warehouses fronted by a Tesla dealership counts a crossfit gym and Tysons Playground Fitness & Performance Center among its other clients, suggesting an indoor pickleball facility may not be out of place.
Currently, the closest option for pickleball players appears to be the EastBoro Sport Court at 8251 Greensboro Street, where DC Fray will set up portable nets for an inaugural summer pickleball league. The league, which is already filled up, is scheduled to kick off on June 28.
The Fairfax County Park Authority now has 74 pickleball courts, as of last November. A study launched in 2020 found a need for more facilities to accommodate demand for the sport and reduce conflicts with tennis players, but the prospect of new courts has proven divisive in residential neighborhoods, where noise complaints have proliferated.
Map via Google Maps
Fairfax County’s child welfare system has seen abuse and neglect cases surge over the past year, taxing the dozens of volunteers charged with advocating for those children in foster care and court.
As of May, over 188 new kids have been placed in foster care or under a protective court order since July 1, 2022 — nearly double the 98 cases added the previous year, according to Fairfax CASA, a nonprofit that trains and supervises volunteer, court-appointed special advocates for children.
With a waitlist of about 50 children, as of last week, the organization says it urgently needs more volunteers, particularly Black, Hispanic and Spanish-speaking individuals.
“It’s such an important program,” Fairfax CASA Executive Director Darcy Hubbard said. “It really does change the outcome for our most vulnerable kids, and we desperately need people right now.”
Fairfax CASA currently has about 140 volunteers assigned to cases referred by the Fairfax County Juvenile & Domestic Relations District Court. They work with attorneys and social workers to help each child get the services they need, increasing their chances of finding a safe, permanent home, according to the nonprofit.
Cases have become more complex
All of the cases are serious, since an advocate doesn’t get involved until after the court has determined a child was abused or neglected. But the issues facing families have grown in complexity this year, limiting most volunteers to one case at a time, Hubbard says.
About 60% of cases now involve domestic violence, compared to the typical rate of 30%, and cases where substance use or mental health issues are factors have also increased. For example, CASA got five cases with babies born with drugs in their bloodstream last year; this year, there have been 32 babies.
According to Hubbard, struggles with depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses have increased for both parents and kids, particularly adolescents, which tracks with Fairfax County and national reports. Alcohol consumption and fentanyl use have also gone up during the pandemic.
“In addition to the trauma and the stuff that’s going on in their families, I think whatever is going on in the world has piled on to all the kids, and for our kids, it hits them extra hard because they don’t have some of the protective factors that other children have,” such as an adult they can rely on or a sense of security at home, Hubbard said.
She emphasized that mental health and substance use issues don’t justify opening a child welfare case, but the county government and court will intervene if those challenges rise to the level of endangering the kid’s wellbeing.
“Usually, the [Department of Family Services] is well-aware of the family and has been trying to work with them and help them for a long time,” she said.
Many issues “stem from poverty,” Hubbard says
DFS, which includes Fairfax County Child Protective Services, reported last year that abuse and neglect reports had soared after a decline earlier in the pandemic when schools closed, cutting the system off from its top source of referrals.
Hubbard also attributes that trend to the initial expansion — and recent contraction — of social safety net services, from stimulus payments to expanded Medicaid coverage and free school lunches.
“While poverty is not a reason to remove children or put a child in foster care, poverty is a risk factor, and people that are poor, families that are struggling with food insecurity, housing insecurity, the stress of struggling with all of those things tend to have more contact with the child welfare system,” she said.
That system has historically conflated signs of poverty with neglect, disproportionately targeting children of color, and Fairfax County is no exception. According to CASA, 36% of the children its advocates see are Black and 42% are Hispanic or Latino, even though those groups make up just 9.6% and 17.3% of the county’s population, respectively.
It’s “problematic” for CASA to have a volunteer pool that’s not representative of the kids it serves, Hubbard says. While the nonprofit works to ensure its volunteers are aware of potential biases and culturally sensitive, it “can mean a lot” for children to have an advocate who looks like them or speaks their language.
Hubbard encourages anyone who’s remotely interested to attend the information sessions that Fairfax CASA hosts twice a month for potential volunteers.
Ultimately, though, she says it’s more effective and less expensive to invest in programs like a basic income that address poverty directly than it is to have someone end up in the child welfare or criminal justice systems.
“If we could put preventative measures in and we could provide assistance and services to these folks and families in a preventive measure as opposed to a reactive measure, we wouldn’t be seeing these percentages,” Hubbard said.
Vienna police are searching for a person who robbed a postal worker while armed with a knife and pepper spray on Friday (June 2).
Officers responded around 11:50 a.m. to a U.S. Postal Service employee’s report that they had been robbed in the 500 block of Church Street NE, the Town of Vienna Police Department said in a news release that afternoon.
“The employee stated the suspect displayed a knife and demanded the employee’s keys,” the VPD said. “The employee complied and gave up their United States Postal Service mailbox key. The suspect then proceeded to pepper spray the employee before fleeing the scene on foot.”
The worker was taken to the hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening.
The department is seeking assistance from the public in the case, asking for potential eyewitnesses or video footage of the encounter.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the USPS, is collaborating with Vienna police on the investigation.
The VPD asks anyone with possible information to contact its public information officer, Juan Vazquez, at 703-255-6366.
Additional details about the robbery, including any identifying information for the suspect, weren’t immediately available.
Reported Boom Came From Military Planes — “Fighter jets caused a sonic boom heard and felt throughout the D.C. area after they were scrambled from Joint Base Andrews to intercept a Cessna jet that flew over” D.C. and later crashed in southwest Virginia yesterday. Fairfax County’s police and fire departments were among the emergency responders that got reports of a loud noise around 3 p.m. [NBC4]
Student Repping Fairfax County Finishes Second at Spelling Bee — “Charlotte Walsh, an eighth-grader representing Fairfax County, was the runner-up in the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee. Walsh, 14, from Compass Homeschool Enrichment, based in Herndon, survived 13 rounds of spelling and word definitions before being tripped up by ‘daviely’ in the 14th round of the finals Thursday night.” [Inside NoVA]
No Injuries Reported in McLean House Fire — On Friday, “#FCFRD [was] on the scene of an house fire in the 6000 blk of Chesterbrook Rd in the McLean area. Units arrived w/ heavy fire showing from the back of home & extending to the attic. All occupants accounted for. No reported civilian or firefighter injuries.” [FCFRD/Twitter]
Reston Advisory Committee Leader Clashes With Police Chief — “Bob Sledzaus resigned as the chairman of the Reston Community Advisory Committee on May 23, citing Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis’ decision to prohibit the recording and livestreaming of committee meetings.” Davis said in April that virtual/hybrid committee meetings will end on Sept. 1, after which recording or live-streaming will be prohibited. [Patch]
Vale Road Closures Through Thursday — “Vale Road (Route 672) between West Ox Road (Route 608) and Fox Mill Road (Route 665) will have stormwater pipe replacement work, weather permitting, Monday, June 5 through Thursday, June 8.” The closure timing will vary, starting today with the section between Cobb Hill Lane and Foxvale Drive between 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. [VDOT]
Mount Vernon Bank Relocates Due to Highway Widening — “Wells Fargo has officially opened its Cooper Center branch after relocating there from a building nearly diagonal across Richmond Highway. According to Wells Fargo spokesperson Kenrick Thomas, the bank moved…after the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) exercised eminent domain rights and bought the Colonial Revival-style building…where the bank previously was located.” [On the MoVe]
New Student Representative Chosen for School Board — “Rida Karim, a sophomore at Woodson High School, has been elected by the countywide Student Advisory Council (SAC) to serve a one-year term as student representative to the Fairfax County School Board, beginning July 1. Karim will participate in School Board meetings as a nonvoting member” [FCPS]
Free Ice Cream at The Boro Tonight — Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams will host a “Hello Summer Party” from 7 p.m. to closing time at all of its locations, including at The Boro (1669c Silver Hill Drive). The first 25 visitors will get free swag bags, and anyone who downloads the business’ app can get a free scoop. [Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams/Facebook]
It’s Monday — Mostly sunny, with a high near 79. North wind 6 to 9 mph. At night: Mostly clear, with a low around 59. West wind 5 to 7 mph. [Weather.gov]
(Updated at 2:20 p.m. on 6/4/2023) Pickleball players at McLean’s Lewinsville Park will soon no longer have to contend with wind gusts.
The Fairfax County Park Authority Board approved a $2,382 grant during its May 24 meeting to support the installation of black privacy slats on the fencing around the park’s dedicated pickleball courts at 1659 Chain Bridge Road.
“The increasing popularity of pickleball has been driving high demand for the athletic courts at Lewinsville Park,” the park authority said in a news release. “However, wind often interferes with play and hinders player performance and safety.”
The four courts opened last October as part of a $650,000 renovation that resurfaced all of the park’s tennis and basketball courts. One of the six existing tennis courts was converted into pickleball-only facilities, and another was restriped to support both sports.
Since then, “hundreds of players” have been utilizing the courts throughout the year, and demand “is expected to grow rapidly,” according to Baroody Camps, an organization that provides school and summer enrichment camps and programs.
Baroody works with the park authority to provide recreational programming, including pickleball. The lack of wind screens for the Lewinsville pickleball courts has become a frequent issue for players, the company said in its Mastenbrook grant application to the FCPA.
“Wind impacts all players at every skill level, undermining players’ ability to place and return the ball
and in some cases forcing players to rapidly shift running direction to reach the ball in play, creating a safety hazard,” Baroody founder and owner Peter Baroody wrote.
In addition to “slowing the crosswinds that occur at the site,” the slats could also potentially “aid in noise reduction,” Baroody told FFXnow.
With the project carrying an estimated cost of $4,764, Baroody will match the approved grant funds and take full responsibility for maintaining the slats, though it says the equipment provider, Long Fence, describes its windscreen “as virtually maintenance-free.”
According to FCPA staff, the project will add 230 linear feet of 9-foot-high slats on the existing pickleball court fencing along the 120-foot sideline and along 110 feet of endline.
The installation is expected to be completed this summer.
Photo courtesy Fairfax County Park Authority/Flickr
