Incident: July 28, 2026, the 7000 block of Sutter Lane, Annandale, Virginia, at 9:57 a.m. Footage released by the Fairfax County Police Department on August 26, 2026.
A woman called 911 to report that her husband was armed with two knives during a domestic incident. Nehemia Fuentes Banegas, 26, had already inflicted injuries on himself and left the residence on foot following a verbal argument.
Fairfax County Police Department officers established a perimeter and requested the helicopter and canine units. During the search, officers were directed to a wooded area off Americana Drive. The air unit was talking them onto him as they moved through it.
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Fuentes Banegas suddenly emerged from heavy brush, grabbed an officer’s firearm, and attempted to disarm him. The officer discharged his firearm, grazing Fuentes Banegas in the shoulder, while a second officer simultaneously deployed a Taser.
Officers immediately rendered medical aid, including removing his shirt to assess and treat the injury, until relieved by Fairfax County Fire and Rescue. He was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and survived. No officers were injured. Two knives were recovered.
Now the footage, and the first thing to look at has nothing to do with the shooting. Look at how thick that brush is.
Officers are walking a tree line with a helicopter overhead calling them onto a location, they have a canine, they are looking for footprints, and the man is lying close enough to reach and they cannot see him. That is the whole tactical problem sitting in one frame. There is no piece of equipment on the market that solves thick cover. You are going to walk past somebody, and sometimes he is going to be right under you.
He does not run and he does not give up. He comes up out of the ground and puts his hands on the barrel of an officer’s handgun.
There is no gray area in that. The second a man grabs your firearm in a wood line, he has told you what he intends to do with it, and the distance between him and everything he needs to do it is zero. There is no reaction time to spend and nowhere to go. That is a lethal-force event before anybody finishes the sentence.
What happens next is the reason officers put less-lethal on a perimeter in the first place. One round goes. A Taser goes at the same instant. The man ends up with a graze on his shoulder and a trip to the hospital instead of a body bag.
Then he is on the ground, just shot, worried about his cell phone, telling the officers they have bad aim. He is an extraordinarily lucky man and nothing in his behavior suggests he knows it.
If you take one practical thing out of this segment, take this: if you are hiding from the police in heavy brush, do not grab the gun. You have just told a man who cannot see your hands that you intend to kill him with his own weapon, and he is going to respond accordingly.
Fuentes Banegas is charged with attempted disarming of a law enforcement officer and is being held on no bond. The shooting has not been ruled on — Fairfax County Major Crimes sends it to the Commonwealth’s Attorney, with Internal Affairs and the independent Police Auditor also reviewing. The officers were placed on restricted duty; the chief said at the release briefing that they have since been cleared and returned to full duty.
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