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A 26-year-old Annandale man has been charged with attempting to disarm a law-enforcement officer after Fairfax County police said an officer shot him during a struggle in a wooded area.
Nehemia Fuentes Banegas suffered a graze wound to his upper-right shoulder in the July 28 encounter, according to police. Authorities described his injuries as non-life-threatening and said he was medically cleared before being taken to the Fairfax County jail.
Fuentes Banegas was charged with attempted disarming of a law-enforcement officer, which FFXnow identified as a Class 6 felony. WTOP reported that he was being held without bond.
The confrontation followed a police response to a home in the 7000 block of Sutter Lane. Fuentes Banegas’s wife reported that he had injured himself with utility knives and fled into nearby woods, according to accounts provided by police. WTOP also reported that she told authorities he had threatened her.
Officers pursued Fuentes Banegas into woods near Americana Drive. Police allege that he emerged from heavy brush, violently grabbed an officer’s firearm and tried to disarm him.
“The officer discharged his firearm while a second officer simultaneously deployed his department-issued taser,” the Fairfax County Police Department said.
The gunfire grazed Fuentes Banegas in the shoulder. Police said body-camera footage later helped investigators locate two utility knives that they allege he used to injure himself.
Police released two still images from officers’ body cameras July 30. One appeared to depict Fuentes Banegas in the brush during the alleged struggle for the officer’s gun. The other showed two utility knives on the ground. Complete video of the encounter had not yet been released when police announced the charge, leaving the department’s account without independent corroboration from the full footage.
Police said the officer who fired has worked for the department for 12 years and is assigned to its K9 Unit. The officer was placed on restricted duty. The department said it would identify the officer within 10 days and release the complete body-camera footage within 30 days.
Initial statement differed from later records
Police Chief Kevin Davis said during an initial briefing that Fuentes Banegas would also face a felony charge of assaulting an officer. That charge was absent from the department’s subsequent release, however, and FFXnow reported that it did not find the charge in the Fairfax County General District or Circuit Court records it checked.
The attempted-disarming charge was the only charge identified in those later sources. The supplied reports did not indicate that charges had been filed in connection with the original domestic incident.
The officer’s use of force remains under several reviews. The Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Bureau is conducting a criminal investigation, while its Internal Affairs Bureau is conducting an administrative investigation. The Office of the Independent Police Auditor is carrying out a separate review.
Those investigations had not reached a public conclusion about whether the shooting complied with the law or department policy.
Separately, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it lodged a detainer asking that Fuentes Banegas remain in custody. ICE asserted that he entered the United States through Texas without legal authorization in 2022 and was subsequently released into the country. The supplied reports did not independently verify the agency’s account of his immigration history or status.