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Lantana Police Chief Arrested, Accused of Crashing Into a Cop Car Drunk on Jungle Juice (UPDATE: He's fired.)

Brace yourself -- this one's a story about the Boca Raton Police investigating an unmarked Lantana Police car crashing into an unmarked Palm Beach Sheriff's Office car. There's been a lot of crime stuff on the Pulp lately, but this one gets posted because, according to the police report, Lantana Police Chief Jeffrey Tyson is the one who done did the crashin'.

Police say it all started when Tyson was sloppy drunk yesterday around 1 in the afternoon, driving around in a Lantana Police-owned Ford Explorer.

He allegedly rear-ended a PBSO vehicle waiting at a red light on Military Trail, then switched lanes and kept driving north. The sheriff's deputy that he bumped then pulled up next to Tyson and told him to pull over, but "the driver had a blank look on his face."

Tyson ended up driving 24 blocks before pulling into a parking lot, where he reportedly said, "What do you want? I only bumped you."

Tyson changed the terminology a bit when Boca Raton officers showed up.

"I tapped him in the ass," Tyson reportedly said when asked about the crash. "No big deal."

Then, a serious case of the confusies. From the report:

Chief Tyson stated he was on Federal Highway on the way home from his doctor. He stated he used to live in Boca Raton and was familiar with the area. When Officer Daly stated the crash did not occur on Federal Highway, Chief Tyson's response was he was on Congress Avenue. Chief Tyson again stated that he was very familiar with Boca Raton. Officer Daly told Chief Tyson that the crash actually occurred on Military Trail. Chief Tyson's response was "I guess so." ...

While Officer Daly was speaking with Chief Tyson, I was standing approximately two feet in front of him and to the right. I could smell a strong odor of alcoholic beverage from his mouth area while he was speaking.

Shortly after, Tyson was arrested after refusing to take a field sobriety test, and police would later find a metal coffee cup in the car with "a red liquid which smelled like an alcoholic beverage." When he was taken in for booking, Tyson blew a .229 and .234 on the Breathalyzer -- almost four three times the legal limit.

Lantana Commander Sean Scheller has been named acting chief for the time being, according to the Palm Beach Post.

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.