Fairfax County Police Watch: 01/29/11

A Lawrence MA police officer has been found guilty of rape and three counts of indecent assault for repeatedly raping a woman that he detained in his cruiser behind the police station. [0]

An Uplands Park MO police officer has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for using his position to sexually assault and rob at least four paid escorts that he called from ads he found then, while in uniform, force them to have sex then take their money. [0]

A Jacksonville FL police sergeant has been convicted for official misconduct and filing false reports. Apparently he wrote up false burglary reports to justify a warrantless raid on a home in order to keep himself and his team out of trouble. He’s also awaiting trial on allegations he beat a handcuffed suspect with a police radio. [0]

At least two Baltimore MD police officers have been named in a lawsuit alleging that they wrongfully arrested a chef outside of his workplace when he asked why the officers were detaining his brother… then arresting another man when one of the officers said “arrest the next person who comes out that door”… then arresting a third man because he was taking pictures of what was happening. [5]

Three Atlanta GA police officers who are members of an elite drug unit have been suspended while under investigation on allegations that they strip searched and performed a body cavity search on two men in public during a traffic stop. [1]

A Las Vegas NV police officer is on leave while investigated for shooting at man who got into a car but was only given a citation for obstruction then allowed to leave the scene. The bullet struck the car but didn’t hit anyone. [2]

The sheriff of Shelby County OH apparently tried to file charges against a reporter for asking him questions about sexual assault allegations that he’s facing. So far the DA has refused to charge the woman though. [5]

The police chief of Bokoshe OK is under investigation by the sheriff’s office after a councilman filed a complaint alleging that the chief assaulted him during a dispute over a council vote while the pair were outside of a convenience store. [2]

An Edmonton AB police officer has been found guilty of assaulting a handcuffed man in the back of his police cruiser. [0]

A Phoenix AZ police officer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to solicitation to commit theft in a deal that dropped 8 other charges including armed robbery, kidnapping, and money laundering related to the robbery of suspected drug dealers while he was on duty. [0]

A Muskegon County MI deputy has been charged with two counts of criminal sexual misconduct involving a female inmate, he already faced 3 other counts for an alleged relationship he had with a former inmate. [1]

A Sanford NC police officer has been charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle over a three car accident he caused that killed one person while he was off-duty. [0]

A Byron IL police officer was arrested on a possession of child pornography charge after an investigation that was performed by the Wisconsin State Department of Justice. [2]

The sheriff of Kidder County ND has been sentenced to probation after he pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge for sexually harassing an employee. [0]

A Windsor ON police constable has been fired for smuggling alcohol across Canadian border and for misuse of police databases. [0]

A Coconino County AZ deputy and a Flagstaff AZ police officer are under investigation over an alleged off-duty hit-and-run accident they were involved in. [0]

A Waterloo Regional ON police officer has been arrested for drug trafficking and another officer was suspended as part of an ongoing investigation that began last year when one officer was arrested on drug charges. [0]

The Seattle WA police department is accused of violating the state public records act by withholding an email in a public records request by a local paper that was sent to the department by a councilman urging the department to have an outside agency investigate the fatal shooting of a Native American woodcarver by a police officer. [4]

A Miami FL police officer has been charged with extortion on allegations he wrote false police reports and protected stolen goods in exchange for cash. [1]

And finally, a number of Miami FL police officers are accusing the police chief of abusing the internal investigation process by using it as a means to harass, intimidate and threaten officers while the chief is fighting to keep his job in the face of mounting criticism. Normally I question these kinds of allegations as they are usually nothing more than attempts by police unions or individual officers to weaken a department’s disciplinary process or make the public question when officers are accused of misconduct. However, there was a case cited which backed the claims alleging that one sergeant is under investigation after trying to arrest the deputy police chief’s daughter after she allegedly attacked an officer. Sometimes the disciplinary process is abused, which seems like a good reason for police officers to support the idea that police departments shouldn’t police themselves, but should be subject to an independent external review mechanism. [3]

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.