Fairfax County Police Watch: McLean Student Says Police Officer Struck Him at McDonald's. Cops promise to investigate cops....chief promises to hand out award

McLean Student Says Police Officer Struck Him at McDonald's

A McLean High School senior and some friends arrived at the downtown McDonald's Friday evening to find it brimming with McLean and Langley students "smack talking" about the just-completed Langley-McLean basketball game and an upcoming beach weekend.

Then three policemen entered through the entrance facing Old Dominion Drive, said Ryan McColgan, 18.

"One had a baton," he said. "The guy with the baton shoved people with the baton." Ryan was standing beside a friend whom Ryan said the officer hit him in the back and he was struck in the throat.

"He told us to leave after we were struck," Ryan said recounting the incident as his mother listened.

"I walked out and talked to another officer because I was bleeding from the mouth,” he said. That officer gave him a towel, he said.

Diana McColgan was one of nearly 30 people who left comments on the McLean Patch front page after the website published a story about the incidents at McDonald's based on an interview with the McLean Police District Commander. She and many other commenters disagreed with the commander's report of the incidents.

In that interview Capt. Daniel Janickey said hundreds of students were at McDonald's on Old Dominion Drive.

"The officers were telling them to disperse and they were not listening. The officer did use his baton to hold one individual up against the wall. No one was ever struck with a baton,” Janickey said.

Both Janickey and Ryan said the officer held the baton across his chest. Both said he did not swing it.

The Fairfax County police department is conducting an administrative investigation, a standard policy when there are allegations of excessive force by officers.

Four students were arrested during the game at McLean High School. A fifth student was arrested outside the McDonald's. All were charged with public drunkenness, police said.

"There was nothing going on in the McDonald's," Ryan said. "... It was just a bunch of friends yelling about other friends. Talking about how we beat them. There was no fight going to happen. I don’t know why they (the officers) came in."

Ryan said the McDonald's manager never asked them to leave.

Janickey said, "We were outnumbered tremendously. We had three officers available and the crowd was being unruly. It was unsafe situation" for the community.

"You had over 100 kids in there (at the McDonald's). They just took the place over. Some were intoxicated. They didn't listen to management or police. The officers were trying to maintain order," he said. "This is a community and public safety issue."

About 10 p.m., Diana McColgan said she received a call from her son "telling me that he had been struck by a police officer twice and was bleeding."

"... He was fine when I last saw him (at the game which they both attended). And I have a hard time understanding if the police are saying no one was hit in the McDonald's how did my son get injured? Whether it was with the baton, the hand, on purpose or by accident it still happened," she said.

She and Ryan visited the McLean police station Saturday around noon looking for answers.

"My main concern was my son," she said. "I wanted to know what gave them the right to strike my son who was in the McDonald's not breaking any law. . . They handled the situation poorly," she 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.