Sandra Jones says it’s been painful and frustrating to wait 15 months for the city to wrap up its investigation into the death of her son in police custody.
Jones is worried that the recent resignation of Ameratu Kamara as Alexandria’s independent policing auditor will set back the case of her son, Allan Tucker II, who died in the back of a police cruiser in the sally port of the Alexandria jail on Aug. 15, 2025.
“Allan deserves a complete and thorough investigation, and our family deserves answers,” Jones told the city’s Independent Community Policing Review Board (ICPRB) Wednesday (Nov. 4). “I respectfully ask the interim policing auditor to review the work that’s already completed, build up on the progress made and move this investigation forward without any unnecessary delays.”
On Wednesday night, the newly-hired interim auditor Florence Finkle told the board that she will make Tucker’s case a priority. Tucker’s case is the first that ICPRB has taken on since its founding in 2021.
In July, after turning in a report that ICPRB and City Council later deemed incomplete, Kamara told City Council that the finished report would be turned in by early September. Instead, ICPRB’s September and October meetings were canceled, and Kamara resigned in early October.
Jones is also suing the city, and said she hopes Kamara’s departure doesn’t mean starting over with the investigation.
“I hope we will not be forced to wait another year for answers,” Jones said. “Fifteen months is already too long for a mother and a family to wait for accountability after losing a loved one.”
In her report, Kamara found that two APD officers violated performance standards and body camera directives and disregarded Tucker’s multiple requests to be taken to the hospital.
The officers were placed on administrative leave and then resumed full duties six months later, after Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter announced he wouldn’t seek charges against them.
The ICPRB and City Council agreed to allow the auditor additional time to investigate the actions of a supervising sergeant, provide clarity behind communication issues with the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office and seek additional information on APD training recommendations.
Response from the interim auditor
Last week, City Council hired Finkle of the California-based OIR Group to be the interim auditor, as the city begins a national search for the permanent position.
Finkle told the ICPRB that she intends on prioritizing the Tucker case but offered no timeline.
“It’s our intention to deal with the pending Tucker case as soon as we can,” Finkle said. “We don’t know much more than what’s already in the public domain. We’re still having to set up, get connected to computer databases and things of that nature. Right now we’re sort of at square one, and I don’t think it’d be fair for us to say how long it will take, since we haven’t seen any video, haven’t read any of the reports other than the public auditor’s report, and we hope that we can help you during this interim transition time.”
OIR Group founder Michael Gennaco joined Finkle, and told the board that the company will prioritize completing Tucker’s case and investigating a fatal police-involved shooting in the West End in May. He also said that filling the auditor role could take an undetermined period of time.
“Our experience is it’s almost never six months, if they tell you it’s six months,” Gennaco said. “We’ll see.”
OIR Group also conducts police oversight for Anaheim, Eureka, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto, Modesto, Santa Rosa, Davis and the counties of Santa Clara and Monterey, Calif., and it serves as the interim monitor for the city of Boulder, Colo.
