Fairfax County Police Watch: National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 11-23-10

With the settlement of the Kwethluk Alaska case (below) Police misconduct has, cost taxpayers about $98,000,000 (ninety eight million) dollars in the month of November and the month ain’t over. That figure comes from known settlements. Out of court settlements, conservatively, is at least $10,000,000 more.

America needs to have a national discussion about the national police problem

Assault
Kwethluk Alaska has lost a civil suit for over $23,000,000 in a jury award to a man who was left a quadriplegic when a Kwethluk police officer and a tribal officer arrested and dragged him to an ATV despite his suffering a head injury and broken neck.

Two Rochester NY cops are under investigation after a local pastor accused the officers of using excessive force when they broke his son’s nose.

A Laurens County SC deputy has been arrested on an assault and battery charge for allegedly assaulting a detainee in jail last year.

Nut job
The police chief of Zionsville IN is the subject of a state investigation over allegations that he stole a television and gun from evidence and that he drew a cocked and loaded firearm out on his officers during a meeting when he felt that officers weren’t paying attention to him.

Obstruction
A Yakima County WA sheriff’s sergeant is under investigation on allegations that he refused to dispatch assistance to a police officer who took part in the arrest of a fellow Yakima deputy who has been charged with raping a woman at gunpoint.

The police chief of Greenwood IN is also under investigation on allegations that he ordered officers to transport an officer to his home after he was detained on allegations that he pulled a gun on a man who confronted him about leaving his baby in his car. Responding officers said they smelled alcohol on the officer’s breath but refused a breathalyzer. The chief allegedly offered the officer a drink at his home after that, essentially making it impossible to discipline or charge the officer.

Theft
A Morehouse Parish LA deputy has resigned after an audit found discrepancies in accounts containing funds deposited by inmates for buying necessities from the jail commissary.

Typical Cop Weasel behavior
The West Virginia State Police are being sued by a newspaper claiming that the agency has been refusing to comply with FOIA requests seeking internal affairs reports related to closed investigations.

And of course, the standard creepy cop behavior
A Bosque Farms NM cop has resigned after an investigation into allegations that he had videotaped himself having sex with two different women, one while on-duty inside a city official’s office, and then uploaded the videos to a departmental computer where they were later discovered.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.