Fairfax County Police Watch: ..and yet Fairfax County Police don't need oversight

Marin County CA has settled a lawsuit for $1,900,000l to a man who was repeatedly tasered when he refused to go to the hospital after he fell at his home. Apparently deputies wanted to take him in for a mental evaluation after he told paramedics he wished someone would shoot him because of the pain. [0]

Columbia MO has settled a lawsuit for $130,000 to a woman who needed surgery after an officer broke her arm during an arrest attempt where there wasn’t an apparent cause. She was charged with a stand-alone resisting charge which was dismissed later. [3]

A South Beloit IL former police officer, the former police chief and former mayor are all facing various charges including assault and obstruction involving a videotaped incident where a handcuffed woman was tasered twice in the neck by the officer and then choked by the police chief apparently because she refused to remain seated while at the station. [0]

A Parkersburg WV police officer is shown on video apparently arresting the passenger of car for asking a question during a traffic stop. Apparently there’s some sort of history between the officer and the men in the car, at least according to the person who posted the video. [3]

Two Las Vegas NV police officers are shown on video detaining a woman for filming them in public on a sidewalk after the officers demanded that she stop filming and move even though she was a good distance away from where the officers were at the time. The person in this video is a frequent visitor to the site and says there’s more video of the incident that she may add later. [3]

A Saskatoon SK police officer has been charged with assault after allegedly fighting with a man from the stands on the ice at a hockey game. [1]

The Los Angeles County CA Sheriff has apparently been accepting more gifts and freebies from patrons over the last three years than all other sheriffs in the state combined. About $120,000 worth including some from known felons according to research by the LA Times. [2]

The police chief of Medina WA has been fired on allegations that he abused position and filled out requests for items in the name of his officers, items that he allegedly kept for himself. [0]

A Roman Forest TX reserve police officer, (apparently reserves in Texas are required to be certified officers), has been arrested on a family violence assault charge after he left scene of the alleged incident. [0]

A Shelbyville TN police officer has been suspended after Nashville police reported that he was at a known crack house though no charges have been filed and he wasn’t detained. [1]

A New Britain CT police captain was charged with DUI & fleeing the scene of an accident after crashing into another car while off duty. While there were no reported injuries resulting from the crash, sadly the officer took his own life later that day. [0]

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.