Fairfax County Police Watch: CONECT proposes actions toward change in East Haven

A diverse coalition of Connecticut clergy representing over 27 multi-faith congregations in New Haven and Fairfield Counties stood together at St. Rose of Lima Church Feb. 1 to call on state and local officials to act immediately to reform the East Haven Police Department.

CONECT — Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut — is the multi-faith, multiethnic, multi-neighborhood non-profit organization of member congregations and religious organizations that come together as one voice for social and economic justice and the common good.

Bridgeport has the largest representation of member congregations in the state.

CONECT's platform is summarized below:

• The State's Attorney should review all arrests by the indicted East Haven Police officers since 2008. Convictions based on arrests founded on racial prejudice and misconduct by the East Haven Police Department should not be allowed to stand.

• The State's Attorney has an obligation to seek to invalidate all convictions resulting from police breaking the law. Someone other than State Attorney Michael Dearington, who failed to thoroughly investigate allegations of police misconduct in response to an inquiry by the East Haven Board of Police Commissioners in June 2010, should conduct the review.

• The East Haven Police Department should immediately implement PERF and DOJ recommendations.

• The East Haven Police Board of Commissioners, Acting Police Chief John Mannion, and Mayor Joseph Maturo should act immediately to implement the recommendations made by the Police Executive Research Forum in March 2011 and the United States Department of Justice in December 2011.

• New policies regarding racial profiling, the use of force, early intervention systems, and a credible disciplinary process for officers should be adopted. Moreover, the department must ensure compliance with the Penn Act's requirements to submit racial profiling arrest data to the state.

• Although dishonesty in police reports was unveiled as early as February 2009, no action was taken by state oversight bodies to prevent further misconduct. The Police Officer Standards and Training Council— the state body that oversees the certification of all officers in the state of Connecticut — should investigate whether any officers in the East Haven Police Department should be decertified, and whether the East Haven Police Department should have held those officers accountable.

• To the extent POST lacks a mechanism to investigate and decertify officers who have engaged in misconduct, it should immediately take steps to develop a mechanism, including a provision for civilian complaints. If necessary, POST should seek additional statutory authority from the legislature.

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.