Fairfax County Police Watch: Dellwood Police Department Under Fire

By Teresa Woodard FOX2now.com

9:18 p.m. CST, January 25, 2012

DELLWOOD, MO. (KTVI-FOX2.now.com)—

Serious crimes, including rape cases and child abuse cases, in Dellwood, Missouri, have gone unprosecuted and the mayor says it`s because of police misconduct. Officers allegedly mishandled critical evidence and never turned over investigations to prosecutors. But not everyone believes the allegations.

The city of Dellwood put its chief on leave in November and St. Louis County loaned the city an administrative officer to fill the position. When he came in, Dellwood Mayor Loretta Johnson says he discovered trouble.

The department`s handling of evidence was in disarray. Officers had taken weapons confiscated in crimes for their own personal use, and sold copper that was evidence in another case to a scrap yard.

Those revelations sparked an audit, which uncovered disturbing details. In more than 120 crimes, Dellwood officers did not present the case to the St. Louis County prosecutor`s office to apply for warrants. And in dozens of cases, they never sent evidence to a lab for analysis.

"There are rape cases. You try explaining that to somebody`s daughter who was a rape victim and thought evidence was being taken seriously, and taken to St. Louis County for processing and it never made it," said Johnson.

But some of Johnson`s critics say this is politics at work. Johnson is in favor of dissolving Dellwood`s police department and allowing St. Louis County to take over. Four aldermen are on her side. But four others are not. They have been boycotting Board of Aldermen meetings since December to prevent a quorum from being present, so the board cannot vote on the takeover.

James Lovings is one of the aldermen boycotting the meetings. And he says the entire audit is biased and skewed, because the mayor supports the county takeover, and the county did the audit. 'You should be able to read between the lines on this,' he said.

"A lot of officers are not applying for warrants because they have already tried. The cases go there, sit in a lab for two or three months before you get results back, and then the end result, it`s denied."

"The problem is not just Dellwood. I`m sure other municipalities are experiencing this issue, where officers go and apply for different applications and it gets denied," he said. "And some of these cases are still being worked."

But the statute of limitations is up on some of the cases involved.

Based on the audit findings, Mayor Johnson is recommending three officers be terminated, but the firings need board approval. Until a board meeting happens, the officers are on unpaid leave.

Other officers will be disciplined, said City Administrator Frank Myers. "Part of the discipline will be training so these officers know how to properly do their jobs," he said. Some officers knew what to do, others had completed the process for a small number of cases, but "then totally neglected the process for a large percentage of others," he said.

Dellwood`s department is dwindling in numbers. Only seven full time officers remain, and two are taking jobs with St. Louis County in early February. Dellwood typically has 15 to 16 officers, but several have left due to the uncertain future. Some are applying for jobs with the county in anticipation of a takeover.

"This is not a witch hunt. The proof is there. It`s up to me to react to it," said Johnson. "I think the citizens that did not get justice deserve an answer and it`s up to me to ask the questions what happened"

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.