Fairfax County Police Watch: Murfreesboro Man Alleges Police Brutality

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Joseph Sushak had a run in with Murfreesboro Police Monday afternoon, and suffered several injuries. He has claimed police brutality. Police say he resisted arrest.

Sushak's run in with police came after an officer-involved chase that ended near his Minerva Drive home. He was outside when officers approached him.

"They just came out from the other side, with their guns pulled. I just freaked out," Sushak explained.

According to Murfreesboro Police officer Kyle Evans, "(Officers) observed a person matching one of the descriptions running from the direct vicinity of the foot pursuit."

"(I) never tried to run, never resisted, just in front of my house. Run from what? I've done nothing. I've done nothing at all," according to Sushak.

Officers came up to Sushak and ordered him to the ground. They admit he complied with the demand.

"However, he refused to place his hands behind his back," Evans said in a news release.

That is when Sushak said police started beating him.

"I heard they were thumping on my head, the back of my head. They bent both of my feet," he said.

A neighbor across the street witnessed the incident and said she did not see Sushak resisting the officers.

"He was looking, like I was looking. I think he might have gotten startled, probably when he saw the police coming," said Cozette Crosby.

Officers eventually put Sushak into a police car and took him to the scene of the scene where officers involved in the pursuit confirmed he was not the suspect.

Police were looking for 28-year-old Bouthay Gee Soupholophakdy, who is from Laos. Sushak is 58-years-old and from Nigeria.

"They first thing I said was, 'Do I look like this guy, as black as I am, do I look like this guy?' They say sorry, you were at the wrong place at the wrong time," Sushak said.

He was treated at a local emergency room for injuries sustained during the incident with officers.

Sushak plans to meet with an attorney Friday and then go to police to make his formal complaint against the officer.

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.