Fairfax County Police Watch: The idiots-in-action report

Word has leaked out that the King County Prosecutor’s Office will not prosecute the Seattle Washington police officer who fatally shot a Native American woodcarver in an incident partially caught on dashcam video. While police officials say the officer may face disciplinary action over the shooting incident which was ruled as being unjustified by a review board, experts speculate that prosecutors didn’t want to upset the powerful police union by charging the officer and that a inquest jury’s split decision in review of the case made a successful prosecution unlikely, especially in light of past failures by the local prosecutors office to gain convictions against police officers in other high-profile cases.

A Las Vegas NV police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man during a drug raid he led has been reassigned to a desk job as discipline for violating policies in the lead-up to that raid and during the raid.

A New Orleans LA police officer has been found guilty of aggravated kidnapping and attempted aggravated rape for detaining a woman and driving her to an abandoned warehouse with the intent of sexually assaulting her.

A Harris County TX deputy is facing an excessive force lawsuit and is now the subject of an investigation after a surveillance video from a Target store contradicted his arrest report and showed him shove a woman into a wall then tackle her while arresting her is under investigation after video contradicts arrest report which claimed she resisted arrest by swinging at the officer and failed to show identification, charges that were dropped after prosecutors reviewed the video.

A Seattle WA undercover police officer who was caught on surveillance video kicking a teen who had his arms up in the groin then kicking him in the ribs and head after he fell is now being sued over the incident. The officer claims the teen was involved in a drug bust gone bad where two officers were robbed but, despite conflicting news reports, his lawyer claims the kid only has one non-violent misdemeanor charge on his record and that the video proves he wasn’t involved in the robbery. Oddly, while the video of the kicking incident has drawn a lot of coverage, video showing the same officer punch a man for videotaping him right after the incident has been largely ignored.

La Junta CO has settled a lawsuit for an undisclosed sum to man who claimed that police lied when they claimed he threatened a passenger on a train in order to cover up his false arrest on terrorism allegations.

Two Miramar FL police officers have been suspended without pay and arrested for official misconduct, falsifying records, trespassing, and criminal mischief after an investigation sparked by another officer’s complaint confirmed that they lied to cover up an illegal warrantless search of an apartment.

A Palm Bay FL police officer is accused of ordering a woman to expose her breasts while he was responding to a domestic disturbance call. However, during a hearing over the woman’s restraining order request another woman also claimed that the officer tried to coax her into showing him her breasts during a traffic stop as well.

A Nogales AZ police officer has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl who was in that department’s police explorer program.

The now-former police chief of Sneedville TN has been indicted on multiple charges for improper conduct with a teen girl and for allegedly pressuring grand jury members who were reviewing the allegations.

A Memphis TN police major who is in charge of that department’s domestic violence bureau has been charged with aggravated assault for allegedly pointing his gun at his wife.

A Saratoga Springs NY police officer has resigned on allegations that he misused his position to retaliate against friends of girl he stalked by pulling them over and harassing them after he entered a plea deal over the stalking charge.

A Louisville KY police officer has been indicted on 7 charges including official misconduct & unlawful access to a computer.

An Emmett ID police officer pled guilty to an injury to a child charge after a 3-year-old got ahold of her gun and shot himself, his baby brother, and his mother by accident. All three survived.

A Pennsylvania State trooper has won a $24,000 judgment in his lawsuit alleging that he was retaliated against by supervisors after he filed a discrimination claim.

An Albuquerque NM police officer is under investigation for listing his occupation as “human waste disposal” on Facebook, a fact that was discovered while he was under review after fatally shooting a suspect he claimed pulled a gun while fleeing.

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.