Fairfax County Police Watch: An Ohio man has filed a lawsuit asserting that a Fairfax County police officer assaulted him

The Washington Post

June 28, 1989, Wednesday, Final Edition

Suit Says Fairfax Policeman Assaulted Handcuffed Man;

4 Other Officers Also Named as Defendants

BYLINE: Patricia Davis, Washington Post Staff Writer

SECTION: METRO; PAGE B4

LENGTH: 378 words

An Ohio man has filed a lawsuit asserting that a Fairfax County police officer assaulted him while he was handcuffed, causing him to lose consciousness and require 15 stitches.

The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, alleged that Officer James M. Blakeney used excessive force against Troy M. Davis after a May 1988 traffic arrest. After the incident, the lawsuit alleged, Davis filed a citizen complaint against the police department, and Blakeney was disciplined after a police department internal affairs investigation.

Police spokesman Warren Carmichael said the department would have no comment while the suit is pending.

The suit follows two recent unrelated incidents in which Fairfax officers were disciplined or fired after striking handcuffed citizens. It also coincides with a Justice Department investigation into possible civil rights violations by Fairfax police.

In addition to Blakeney, the suit named the Fairfax Board of Supervisors and four other officers as defendants. The suit, which alleges the county condoned the use of excessive force by its police officers, seeks a total of $ 250,000 in damages.

The suit said Davis, a day laborer who lives in Ohio, was arrested May 21, 1988, for disregarding a red light. After measuring .14 on a blood-alcohol test -- .10 is the legal amount to be considered intoxicated in Virginia -- Davis used profane language as several officers accompanied him to a cell at the Mount Vernon Police Substation, the lawsuit stated.

Davis alleged that one officer grabbed him by the throat and started choking him while another handcuffed him. The officer slammed Davis' head into a windowsill, causing him to lose consciousness, the suit alleged. Davis was taken to Mount Vernon Hospital, where he received 15 stitches.

According to the suit, the other four officers were present throughout the incident. The suit named officers David A. Russel and Dennis L. Park and said the other two officers remain unidentified.

The suit did not say what role each officer played in the alleged incident. One of the lawsuit's counts singled out Blakeney, asserting he assaulted Davis.

Asked for comment yesterday, John E. Harrison, an attorney for Davis, said "the lawsuit speaks for itself."

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.