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Indianapolis police chief quits amid crash blunder

Indianapolis' police chief resigned and two other top officers were suspended Tuesday over the latest blunder in the case of a fatal crash involving a police officer authorities believe was drunk.

The city's mayor and public safety director also called in the FBI to help restore public confidence in a police department they say has endured decades of neglect and corruption.

The developments came a day after prosecutors informed police Chief Paul Ciesielski that a key second vial of blood from Officer David Bisard had been mishandled and left unrefrigerated in a police property room annex. The revelation cast doubt about whether authorities can show Bisard was legally drunk in August 2010 when he drove into a pair of motorcycles stopped at a traffic light, killing one rider and injuring two others. Bisard is awaiting trial on reckless homicide and other charges.

"At best, this matter shows gross incompetence, at worst possible criminal intent," said Mayor Greg Ballard, who declined to elaborate.

Ciesielski was not at Tuesday's news conference and did not immediately return a message left with a department spokesman. He will remain with the department as a captain.

Public Safety Director Frank Straub placed Deputy Chief Valerie Cunningham, Lt. Paula Irwin and a civilian property room supervisor on paid leave. Deputy Public Safety Director Rick Hite, a 32-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, was sworn in as acting police chief.

Allegations of a cover-up in Bisard's case started shortly after the crash, when prosecutors announced a blood test showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 more than two hours after his squad car plowed into the motorcycles, killing 30-year-old Eric Wells and injuring two others. Many were incredulous that neither police at the scene nor the medical personnel who drew the blood and evaluated Bisard for injuries realized he was drunk. An internal police investigation found Bisard was driving 73 mph in a 40 mph zone and using a laptop computer for messages not related to police business.

Marion County Superior Court Judge Grant Hawkins last year found the first blood test was improperly administered by someone not legally certified to take the sample. Last week, Hawkins gave prosecutors permission to test a second blood sample. But prosecutor Terry Curry said his office subsequently discovered the vial was moved from the main police property room to the annex in November.

Indiana University law professor Fran Watson said the lack of refrigeration could allow defense attorneys to question its validity.

Straub was brought in by Ballard more than two years ago to reform the police department, but Bill Owensby, president of the Indianapolis chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he also should go.

"I don't know how you can run an investigation when it's going well, then hand it off when it's not going well," Owensby said.

Straub rejected such suggestions, saying problems with the department dating back half a century could not be fixed in a couple of years. He also said property room procedures have not been updated since 1980.

"This is 30 or 40 or 50 years of neglect and what I've heard from the management of the police department over and over and over again during the two years and four months that I've been here is that, `We knew this was going on, we just never bothered to fix it. We knew officers were drinking on duty. We knew that officers were going to strip clubs, but we didn't take action. We didn't hold ourselves or those officers accountable.'"

Attorney Linda Pence, who represents Wells' parents in a federal lawsuit against Bisard and the city, said the latest development confirmed her "worst presumptions."

"I'd like to say that I'm surprised, but I believe that the conduct in this case from day one was inappropriate and this confirms that it is a very deep issue within the department," Pence said.

Bisard's attorney was out of town Tuesday and didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal hearings into the police problem in America. Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a permanent DOJ office on Police Misconduct.

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.