Fairfax County Police Watch: “It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America

Former Portland police officer running for Wheeler County sheriff no longer collecting disability benefits
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 7:00 PM Updated: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 8:01 PM

Christopher Humphreys, a Portland officer who was collecting stress-related disability benefits on and off for more than three years since his involvement in the controversial in-custody death of James P. Chasse Jr., was found fit for duty this month as he runs for sheriff in Wheeler County.
He was medically laid off from the Portland Police Bureau Nov. 23, 2010, because of the length of time he was off work collecting disability payments – a move the city is taking more often to ensure officers or firefighters on long-term disability don't remain on city staffing rolls forever.
Yet, as allowed, he continued to receive disability checks, recently collecting monthly checks of $1,546.86.
But as of April 7, Humphreys -- who recently announced his run for sheriff -- "no longer meets the eligibility criteria" for disability benefits after a medical report confirmed he's "now able to perform the required duties of his job," according to Portland's public safety fund.
Humphreys said Tuesday he used the time off to obtain counseling, and now is feeling good and eager to give back to the Wheeler County community, home to five generations of his family.
"I'm more than capable of being an officer, but I do not want to be an officer in Portland," Humphreys said.
Linda Jefferson, director of Portland's Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Fund, said the public safety fund had the medical re-evaluation done as part of its "routine claim-management activities." It also came as word spread of Humphreys' plan to run for sheriff.
Humphreys said he scheduled the medical evaluation, an annual requirement, before the fund notified him to do so.
The fund cut off Humphreys' disability benefits on April 7, which means he can no longer accrue time toward his pension since he's no longer an active member of the Portland police bureau or a disabled member. He'll be eligible to collect his pension Nov. 30, 2024.
According to the city's public safety fund, Humphreys was off duty from the Portland Police Bureau and collecting disability benefits between Jan. 27, 2006, and Jan. 3, 2007, and again from Nov. 27, 2009, through April 6, 2012.
The benefits were connected to a stress-related claim.
"Every time, I used that to protect myself and do what needed to be done, to seek counseling," he said. "No one is ever going to say I abused it."
Humphreys gained notoriety for his involvement in the city's record $1.6 million settlement stemming from a federal wrongful death lawsuit brought by Chasse's family. He faced public scrutiny and internal police review for two separate on-the-job incidents: Chasse in 2006 and another in 2009. Humphreys spent a year off duty on disability, starting about four months after the death of Chasse, a 42-year-old man who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, in his custody Sept. 17, 2006. Chasse was knocked to the ground after he ran from officers who suspected he was urinating in a street. He died from blunt force trauma to the chest. In November 2009, then-police commissioner Dan Saltzman and former chief Rosie Sizer proposed Humphreys be suspended for two weeks for failing to insist that Chasse be taken by ambulance to a hospital after police stunned him with a Taser and after the jail refused to book him because of his physical condition. Saltzman also found that Humphreys failed to provide paramedics at the scene with a full account of the violent struggle. Humphreys later filed another stress-related disability claim when the bureau began an internal investigation into his Nov. 14, 2009 shooting of a 12-year-old girl with a beanbag shotgun on a Northeast Portland MAX platform. Former police union president Scott Westerman told The Oregonian then that Humphreys was devastated when the commissioner on Nov. 19, 2009, ordered he be removed from the street, with his gun and badge taken pending the investigation. The move led to a police union protest, with members wearing , "I am Chris Humphreys" shirts in his support. In September 2010, Chief Mike Reese found Humphreys acted within policy.
Humphreys, 37, had worked as a Wheeler County sheriff's deputy for three years before joining Portland police in February 1999. He was the first to file paperwork on Feb. 10 for the position of Wheeler County sheriff. Wheeler County Deputy Sheriff Mike Garibay will run against him as a write-in candidate.
Of the Wheeler sheriff's office, Humphreys said, "They really need good leadership. Somebody like me." He described himself as a highly qualified candidate, with experience in a small sheriff's office and a large police agency where he worked patrol, in the transit division and emergency management unit. He also has a master's in criminal justice from Boston University.
"I have a concern and abiding love for that county," he said.
Should he lose the election, Humphreys would have until November 2015 to decide to return to work at the Portland Police Bureau– the five-year period allowed for return-to-work after a medical layoff.

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.