Fairfax County Police Watch: Female Workers Sue Fairfax Police;

August 11, 1994,4 Female Workers Sue Fairfax Police;

3 Officers, Civilian Accuse Lieutenant of Repeated Sexual Harassment Three female police officers and a civilian employee sued the Fairfax County Police Department yesterday for $ 1 million, claiming a male supervisor sexually harassed them at times during the last 12 years. The women alleged that Lt. Larry Jackson repeatedly made unwanted suggestive remarks and overtures. Two of them said he retaliated after they complained about his behavior to his superiors by filing petty or phony disciplinary charges against them."This has been a recurring pattern," said Carla Markim Siegel, an attorney for the women. "These women didn't know each other. They complained independently, and the department didn't take adequate measures to prevent it from happening again... . It creates a hostile work environment." The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, rekindles a controversy surrounding the treatment of women in the 1,036-member department. Two years ago, 10 female officers complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about a "locker room attitude" in the department and said they had been denied promotions and key assignments because of their sex.Although the county drafted a policy against sexual harassment last year, the suit contends that women continue to be subjected to abuse. Police Chief Michael W. Young and Jackson also were named as defendants.Maj. Richard Rappoport, a police spokesman, said the department has acted swiftly in cases involving workplace harassment. All supervisors underwent training last year in ways to detect and address sexual harassment, he said. He declined comment on the allegations against Jackson, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.Jackson referred questions to his attorney when reached at his office in the department's West Springfield station. The lawyer, Kristin R. Blair, said the allegations are false and stem from a "racially hostile" work environment that "encourages unfounded claims and promotes exaggerations against minorities."Jackson filed an EEOC complaint alleging racial discrimination seven months ago, and that case is pending, Blair said. "I feel that Larry is just being made out as some fiend and he's really a straight arrow," she said.The suit was filed by Officers Susan Long, Cynthia McAlister and Elizabeth Dohm and Andrea Moss, a civilian communication aide, all of whom worked under Jackson's supervision at various times during his 17-year police career.Their lawyer, Siegel, said race had nothing to do with the lawsuit.Among other things, Long said Jackson once ordered her back to the office while she was on the way to a burglary call to ask her out to lunch. He also suggested she use her "sex appeal" to get him new uniforms, the suit said.McAlister said that Jackson made advances while the two took a private airplane ride in 1982 and that her colleagues later ridiculed her about the incident. Moss said Jackson made up a list of phony disciplinary charges against her last year after he learned she complained about him to the department's internal affairs unit. On another occasion, she said she found computer records that falsely showed Jackson had disciplined her.Dohm also said she was disciplined by Jackson after talking about him to internal affairs investigators three years ago.

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.