Fairfax County Police Watch: City settles over rogue cops' shakedown

$700,000 to go to South Side family menaced by police

The city of Chicago has agreed to pay a South Side family $700,000 to settle a 2006 lawsuit that alleged a group of rogue police officers extorted thousands of dollars during a series of armed raids at the family's home, according to the family's attorney.

"We were constantly in fear every day," said plaintiff Sharon Wilkins, 44, during a news conference Friday. "(We were) barely sleeping at night."

Roderick Drew, a spokesman for the city's Law Department, confirmed that there is "a proposed settlement in place" that would be subject to City Council approval

Four of the defendants named in the lawsuit were arrested in 2005 and later convicted and sentenced to prison for shaking down drug dealers in Englewood. Wilkins and her family alleged that those former police officers targeted them because her brother Larry had a criminal drug record.

In 2004, officers Corey Flagg, Eural Black, Darek Haynes and Broderick Jones came to the home of Wilkins' mother at times when they knew the family had received Social Security or work checks, then threatened to plant drugs and guns on Larry Wilkins and arrest him if the family didn't pay them, according to family attorney Blake Horwitz.

"They would say, 'We're going to arrest this guy (Larry Wilkins) today,'" Horwitz said. "See these drugs, these drugs are going to be his. See this gun, this gun is going to be his."

The officers would handcuff family members or friends who happened to be at the home and threaten them with arrest and criminal drug possession charges if they did not give them cash, according to the lawsuit.

The raids went on for about a year and the officers stole between $8,000 to $13,000, according to Horwitz.

Wilkins' son on Friday recalled that on one occasion a police officer even held a gun to his head.

"I thought he was going to shoot me," said Rashi Gant, now 18. "They corrupted my whole image and the way I think of police."

On Aug. 6, 2004, the family alleged that they refused to pay the police and Flagg planted cocaine on Larry Wilkins and arrested him. Wilkins spent eight months in jail before the charges were dismissed, according to the lawsuit.

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.