Fairfax County Police Watch: Video: Cops Beat Bronx Teen, D.A. Launches Investigation

The Bronx D.A. and NYPD Internal Affairs are investigating officers caught on video beating a Bronx teenager during a drug arrest on Thursday. NY1 is first with the story, and reports that Jatiek Reed, 19, was arrested last week on charges of robbery, possession of marijuana and crack cocaine and assaulting a police officer. This video shows part of the arrest, with police beating Reed with batons and kicking him as he lies on his side on the sidewalk: According to the criminal complaint, an officer needed stitches "to close a cut on his nose." But Reed's family is planning to sue the city, and his father tells NY1, "This so-called assault on an officer, which we all know never took place. Even... if it had happened and if he hit this officer, no one ever saw that. And it still doesn't call for the abuse that they put on my son. A sergeant was there allowing all of this abuse to take place in his presence."

After the arrest, Reed's mother, brother, and friend went to the precinct station house to confront officers about the incident, and they were arrested as well. The NYPD claims they attacked officers, but they deny that. "They refused to take him back to the hospital and they wouldn't give him no medicine or anything," Reed's mother tells NY1. "He has staples in his head, he has staples in his arm, his eyes were black, his whole entire back is black, blue, purple."

And on Facebook, one "Rebel Diaz" has been trying to spread word about the incident, writing, "The kid's name is Jatiek Reed, he is a high school senior expecting to graduate this May. He was unarmed and stopped for no reason. He is currently in jail ...along with his family who were arrested after going to bail him out. They attempted to mace Trevor, the guy filming. THIS IS CRAZY AS HELL. THEY LOCKED UP THE FAMILY AND HAVE BEEN HARASSING THE YOUTH WHO FILMED THE VIDEO..."

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.