Fairfax County Police Watch: This week’s candidates for the Brian Sonnenberg Peaceful Resolution to Conflict Center Award. Fairfax County Police. police brutality

Judge refuses to reinstate San Francisco sheriff

Ross Mirkarimi had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor stemming from a fight with his wife. The suspended law idiot cop will go before the city's ethics panel on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO — A judge Friday refused to reinstate suspended San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, paving the way for a city ethics commission and the Board of Supervisors to determine whether the elected sheriff should be removed for a domestic violence-related conviction.

Mirkarimi, 50, elected keeper of San Francisco's jails in November, argued that Mayor Ed Lee did not have authority to suspend him for an action that occurred before Mirkarimi was sworn in as sheriff in January.

Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to a false imprisonment misdemeanor rather than go to trial on charges stemming from a New Year's Eve quarrel with his wife, Venezuelan telenovela star Eliana Lopez. Lopez suffered a bruise on her arm after Mirkarimi grabbed her during an argument about whether she could take their son to Venezuela.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold E. Kahn, presiding over Friday's court hearing, said Mirkarimi should try to win his case before the city's ethics panel and the Board of Supervisors before resorting to the courts. The judge observed that there was a long tradition of elected officials being judged by other elected lawmakers and noted that presidents can be impeached.

San Francisco's process for removing public officials "may be a peculiar proceeding set up by the charter but I don't think it is so far afield that I should pull the plug before it starts," Kahn told the court. He also denied Mirkarimi's attempt to be paid his $199,000 annual salary during his suspension, noting the sheriff will be entitled to back pay if he wins reinstatement.

Mirkarimi will go before the San Francisco Ethics Commission on Monday. The panel of five political appointees will recommend to the Board of Supervisors whether Mirkarimi should be reinstated. Mirkarimi was an elected supervisor before becoming sheriff.

Mirkarimi said he would continue fighting and suggested that politics may have influenced his case. "I accept responsibility completely for grabbing my wife's arm," he told reporters after the hearing. "I am so terribly sorry for that."

Mirkarimi was sentenced last month to a three years of probation, 100 hours of public service and 52 weeks of domestic violence classes and was ordered to pay $590 in fines and fees.

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.