Fairfax County Police Watch: DeKalb cop accused of bogus arrest, excessive force

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A DeKalb County police officer has been reprimanded for using excessive force and being unprofessional when arresting a man in October 2010, internal department documents show.

According to a DeKalb County Police internal affairs investigation acquired by Channel 2 Action News, Officer T.J. Crumpton slammed Brian J. Peterson into an SUV, a police car and to the ground while Peterson was handcuffed.

"I hit the concrete. I feel blood running down my face. Once we get to the patrol car he throws me into it full speed and then he throws me on the ground," Peterson told Channel 2.

Peterson encountered Crumpton on the night of Oct. 20, 2010, while Crumpton was working an off-duty, part-time job at a Memorial Drive bar.

Crumpton charged Peterson with public drunkenness, felony interference with government property (kicking a squad car, the initial incident report says), giving a false name to police and obstruction.

While one person interviewed during the internal affairs investigation supported Crumpton’s assertion, two DeKalb officers told internal affairs investigators that Crumpton was too heavy-handed.

“She saw [Crumpton] throw the suspect into the passenger’s side of a black SUV in the parking lot, causing a dent,” the IA report said Officer S. Harvey stated during an interview. “After arriving at the [police] vehicle, officer Crumpton threw the suspect into the driver’s side rear of the vehicle causing a dent. Officer Crumpton then threw the suspect on the ground causing an injury to his face/head.”

Crumpton’s attorney, Tessie Edwards, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday.

When taking a lie detector test during the internal investigation, police determined that Crumpton was dishonest when he denied using profanity while arresting Peterson and slamming the man into the two vehicles, according to the internal report.

Peterson spent five days in jail and eventually lost his job as an insurance broker because of the felony charge, his attorney Mark Bullman said in a letter threatening litigation and sent to the department last autumn. The charges against his client, Bullman said, were bogus.

“No one at DCPD has done anything to have the arrest voided and the charges dismissed, despite having overwhelming evidence that no such crime occurred,” Bullman said in the Oct. 17 letter. “Mr. Peterson will be seeking damages associated with loss of his job and income.”

In an interview with Channel 2, Bullman said, "They know Brian did not do this from every witness we spoke to, except officer Crumpton. ... There is absolutely no excuse for that man to have been remaining at the department, none.”

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s office dropped charges against Peterson in November 2011. Speaking about the arrest, the loss of his job and what he had to say to his family, Peterson told Channel 2, "It was embarrassing. It was very hard."

DeKalb police suspended Crumpton for 10 hours.

“For violating federal and state laws and DCPD policy, DCPD saw fit to give Crumpton a day off without pay,” Bullman said of Crumpton’s punishment in his letter. “This response is ludicrous.”

According to personnel records obtained by Channel 2, Crumpton has more than 30 infractions, internal investigations or complaints, including 10 incidences of excessive use of force dating back to 2005.

And one police major, reviewing a 2009 infraction for taking a part-time job without department permission and as a result being unwilling to report on another officer's excessive force, recommended Crumpton be fired.

"In review of IA’s three-year disciplinary history of Officer Crumpton, he has repeatedly shown a patter of misconduct that is indicative of someone who consistently uses poor judgment time and again," Maj. Lionel G. Higdon said in a June 3, 2009 letter to Deputy Chief G.R. Horner obtained by Channel 2.

At that time, Crumpton had amassed four counseling letters and more than two weeks of unpaid suspension between 2007 and 2009 for offenses ranging from insubordination to neglect of duty.

In his letter, Bullman argued that Crumpton should face criminal charges, citing the officer’s history of getting into trouble.

“Crumpton clearly violated Georgia law by false swearing in his affidavits to obtain the felony and other warrants, which he knew were not supported by the facts,” Bullman said. “If anyone should have been arrested for the events of that evening, it is Officer Crumpton.”

The District Attorney’s office is reviewing the case, but no charges have been filed against Crumpton, a spokesman said.

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.