Fairfax County Police Watch: Wrong apology sought from East Haven's mayor

Rushing to condemn East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. for political incorrectness or insensitivity, his critics have let him get away with a real offense: his complicity in the perjury committed by his town's police officers.

When Maturo told a reporter this week that his response to the Latino community's concerns about police misconduct might be to have tacos for dinner, he wasn't being racist, though he happily has been presiding over bigotry. Rather the mayor was expressing contempt for those concerns -- as he already had done immediately upon this week's federal indictment of four East Haven officers.

"We basically have a very good police department," Maturo told the New Haven Register. "I stand by our police department from top to bottom."

This is the department that, since March 2009, had been exposed for falsifying the written record of the arrest of a Catholic priest who was videotaping the harassment of Latinos by East Haven police. The officers charged the priest with threatening them with what they thought was a weapon at a Latino grocery store. But the audio on the priest's video recorded the officers as acknowledging that he had only a camera. In court the charge against the priest was dismissed quickly and his video of the lying cops was broadcast repeatedly throughout the state.

But no one in authority in Connecticut's government did anything about the perjury by the police -- not the judge who dismissed the case against the priest; not the prosecutor who handled the charges; not East Haven's police chief, later suspended by Maturo's predecessor as mayor but quickly restored to office upon Maturo's election two months ago; not then-Gov. Jodi Rell; not Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane; and not Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, now U.S. senator, and other members of Connecticut's congressional delegation who now have gotten upset only about "tacos." Even Governor Malloy's first comment about the case, this week, was only a demand that Maturo apologize for "tacos" -- which the mayor already had done.

The East Haven police enjoy no presumption of innocence in the matter of the priest. While nearly everything else in the federal indictment remains to be proved, the priest's case was already fully documented and concluded. Anyone could compare the signed arrest report against the video and audio of the incident and the dismissal of the charge.

That case and the lying officers behind it are what Mayor Maturo should be apologizing for, just for starters. His "taco" remark is only a snide little manifestation of his refusal to acknowledge and correct what is wrong with the East Haven police. What's wrong there won't be corrected by the mayor's supporting the department "from top to bottom" when it is plainly corrupt from the top down, with a chief who endorses perjury by his officers.

But then everyone in authority in Connecticut who knew about the case of the priest and decided not to risk political trouble with police officers, their unions, and bigots throughout the state and leave justice to the U.S. attorney's office or to God should be apologizing too.

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.