Photo: Virginia State Police / Courtesy
The Virginia State Police admitted to “human error” in hiring Agent Austin Lee Edwards, the officer who killed the grandparents and the mother of a 17 year-old girl from California who he “fished” online.
“Human error resulted in an incomplete database query during the Edwards hiring process”, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in a news release on Wednesday.
The statement is equivalent to admitting that the agency should have been aware of a incident of reported by the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, in which Edwards was detained for psychiatric evaluation after threatening to kill himself and his father.
According to a police report from Abingdon, Virginia , obtained by the Los Angeles Times through a public records request, Edwards was taken into custody after he cut his hand and EMTs had to call police to help restrain him.
EMTs, accompanied by police, took Edwards to a local hospital, where he was taken into custody under an emergency custody order.
Later that day, a judge approved a temporary detention order and Edwards was transferred to a local psychiatric facility.
Edwards’ father told police he didn’t know why his son got hurt, but said it may have been related to problems with his then-girlfriend, according to the police report.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Geller said the Virginia State Police would not have hired any officer candidates if they knew they had been detained under a warrant. custody of emergency and a temporary detainer.
Geller declined to say whether the state’s background check process would have revealed any warrants.
Edwards never disclosed the 2022 incident, Geller said.
The Abingdon Police report, which is public record, details the violent incident of 2022 and references both the custody order of emergency and temporary detainer.
Virginia State Police have not said whether the police report should have appeared during the background check Edwards.
Geller declined to comment on the specific circumstances surrounding the custody and detainer orders for Edwards, saying the law prohibited the department from discussing confidential records, despite the fact that a D.C. e Washington released those records Tuesday in response to a motion filed by the Los Angeles Times.
Riverside police said that
Edwards, 17 years old, posed as a 28 years while communicating with the girl online. In November, he drove across the country to his home in Riverside and killed his family before setting the house on fire and fleeing with the girl.
San Bernardino County officials initially said Edwards was killed in a shootout with police after officers stopped his car.
But the Sheriff’s Department The San Bernardino County clarified last week that Edwards died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The teen was uninjured.
Geller said Edwards returned all of his state equipment, including his service weapons, on his last day of employment.
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