Fairfax County Police Watch: The Worst Police Misconduct Videos of 2011

The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP) “Worst Police Misconduct Video of the Year” readers poll is part an examination of how our readers view police misconduct and part effort to garner more interest into the issues of police misconduct, transparency, and accountability.
Though so many of the thousands of cases we cover each year are bad even when they don’t include video of the incident, we pick about 20 each year that did have publicly accessible video associated with their cases and ask our readers to vote for the worst… and this is the third year we’ve run the poll.
There are no awards, prize packets, or even fake gotcha trophies in this contest that, ultimately, has no real winners. Just the shameful knowledge that hundreds of people decided that the officers involved took part in the worst example of police misconduct immortalized on video in the year of 2011.

Click the link below to see the evidence

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?page_id=5064

With that said, here are the results of our poll:

The fifth worst police misconduct video of 2011 – 67 Votes (15%)

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This video that almost never made it to the light of day shows several Houston TX cops piling up on a 15-year-old burglary suspect after he was clipped by a police car and appeared to surrender. The officers then proceed to take turns repeatedly punching, kicking and kneeing the young teen for a span of minutes as he laid on the ground before taking him away. The mayor and police bitterly fought to keep this video from being released and complained fiercely that the person who leaked it should have been arrested.

The fourth worst police misconduct video of 2011

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This controversial and disturbing video of a no-knock raid performed by the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force in Utah appears to show a raid that went wrong and didn’t conform to standard planning practices. The multi-agency task force decided to rush into performing a raid on a home they suspected had housed a meth dealer in September of 2009. However, the raid only turned up a small amount of marijuana by one account or a small amount of an unidentified substance according to a different report. Needless to say, it appears as though their target wasn’t a dealer but, at most, an addict who died with $4.00 in his possession. The fatal shooting occurs very quickly after officers burst through the door, about 1 second after they spotted the victim holding a golf club at least 15 feet away. The report claimed the victim was approaching officers menacingly but, as the video shows, he was stationary at the time and appeared to have just woken up.

The third worst police misconduct video of 2011

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Several Phoenix AZ police officers and Maricopa County AZ deputies are seen in surveillance video taking down a detainee who didn’t appear to be presenting any visible threat then choking and tasering him repeatedly before dragging him into a “safe cell” where they stripped him naked and left him for several minutes. When they checked on him again he was unresponsive and not breathing. He died several days later when he was taken off life support while brain dead. While the Phoenix PD insisted their role in the incident was minimal, the video appears to contradict them.

The second worst police misconduct video of 2011

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In Las Vegas NV, police officer Derek Colling was fired after an investigation into his actions for beating and arresting a man for videotaping police from his own yard. The video of the incident, shown above, was posted by the victim on YouTube.

The Worst Police Misconduct Video of 2011

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6 Fullerton CA police officers can be heard on this video, but not clearly seen, beating Kelly Thomas as Thomas heartrendingly cries out in pain for his father in an encounter, stemming from a questionable car prowling call, that ultimately led to Kelly Thomas’s death from numerous injuries. After a lengthy investigation 2 of the officers were charged with murder/manslaughter and excessive force over the incident. Other videos from surveillance cameras exist but are being kept secret as were a lot of details, which led to recall efforts against public officials who defended the police and tried to whitewash the incident prior to the criminal charges being filed. The incident also led to a flood of other misconduct reports involving that city’s police department being brought out and other legal cases as well.

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.