The family Bijan Ghaisar, who was killed by U.S. Park Police during a traffic stop in 2017, is asking the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute the officers involved, after Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares dropped the case.

Miyares filed to have the case against officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard dismissed on Friday afternoon.

“In light of all the circumstances of the life-or-death situation confronting them, Officers Amaya and Vinyard acted reasonably in their use of force, and did no more than was necessary and proper to perform their lawful duties as federal officers,” Miyares wrote in a statement to DCist.

“I will not perpetuate the continued prosecution of two officers who were doing what they were trained to do under tremendously difficult circumstances,” said Miyares. “I am saddened by what happened and the pain it has caused. But persecuting the police was the wrong response.”

Ghaisar was a 25-year-old accountant who lived in Fairfax County. On Nov. 17, 2017, he was rear-ended while driving on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. After leaving the scene of the crash, Ghaisar was pursued by the two officers. Dash-cam video released by Fairfax County Police, who did not fire their weapons, shows Ghaisar driving away from Park Police twice, before a final stop, where Amaya and Vinyard fired multiple rounds into Ghaisar’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, fatally wounding the unarmed man. Ghaisar died ten days later.

“Why can’t we have justice for him? For five years we have not given up,” said Ghaisar’s mother, Kelly Ghaisar, in an interview with DCist. “This is America, for crying out loud.”

Kelly Ghaisar said the family was shocked by Miyares’s decision to drop the case, and had not received any communication from the AG’s office. “No one expected this. This was truly an evil act that he would do that,” she said.

The police officers were indicted in 2020 by Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano. Mark Herring, Virginia Attorney General at the time, joined the case. But Herring, a Democrat, lost his bid for reelection in 2021 to Miyares, a Republican.

“This is an inexplicable and indefensible decision by the attorney general to do this,” said Descano in an interview with DCist. “It is clear that Jason Miyares sees the police as the real victims here, and Bijan is merely a footnote.”

Descano does not dispute that Miyares has the legal authority to end the prosecution of the officers, but says it’s highly unusual that the AG would do so without the local prosecutor being on board with the decision.

“We’re really in uncharted territory where the attorney general completely cuts out the local prosecutor, who started a case, when making a decision like this.”

Descano is joining the Ghaisar family in calling on the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute the officers.

“The path forward on this case is the federal government,” said Descano. “That’s why I am fighting like hell and doing everything I can to advocate for the U.S. Department of Justice to take over this case.”

Previously, the department declined to do so, but that may be different now. In 2019, under President Trump, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office found it could not prove that the two officers had committed “willful violations” of federal law.

“Specifically, the department is unable to disprove a claim of self-defense or defense of others by the officers,” stated a press release at the time.

Under President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland has signaled some support for the prosecution. In June 2021, he reversed a Trump-era decision and allowed FBI agents to cooperate with prosecutors on the case in Virginia.

Kelly Ghaisar says the family is optimistic that Garland will reopen the federal case. “Now that this case is being dismissed by our own attorney general, hopefully he and his Department of Justice will all be outraged and actually do something. We are very hopeful, very hopeful, and we ask that they do that, please,” she said.

Meanwhile, she said, the family is planning a celebration to mark the date in September when Bijan would have turned 30.

“We will never celebrate a wedding for a Bijan,” she said. “I will never see Bijan’s gray hair. I will never see my grandchildren — as he used to call it, little Bijies — I will never get to do that.”