Fairfax County Police Watch: Groups vow to make police oversight election issue

Candidates for the job of Omaha mayor can expect pointed questions about their positions on police oversight during their campaign stops, a group of concerned citizens said Thursday.
Members of Black Men United, Keep North Omaha Safe, Omahans for Justice and the Progressive Research Institute called Thursday for the elimination of arbitration when an Omaha police officer is disciplined. They spoke outside the Omaha Police Department Headquarters, where two officers have returned to work after arbitrators overturned their firings.
Police Officers Aaron Pennington and Jackie Dolinsky were fired for their participation in the beating of Robert Wagner as he was resisting arrested outside the Creighton University Medical Center on May 29, 2011. Both challenged their firings before an arbitrator, which is allowed under the police union contract.
“Under the Omaha police union contract, the arbitration process is completely secret,” said Willie Hamilton of Black Men United. “We cannot know what evidence the city's lawyers made in defense of the two firings or the details of the arbitrator's reasoning.”
Hospital surveillance videotape of Wagner’s arrest sparked community outrage and led then-Omaha Police Chief Alex Hayes to fire Dolinsky and Pennington for using excessive force. The police union has said Hayes’ actions were politically motivated because the chief didn’t act until after the surveillance video was released to the public.
Wisconsin-based arbitrator Sharon K. Imes said city attorneys did not submit persuasive evidence that Pennington, the officer most recently reinstated to the force, used excessive force.
Hamilton said the arbitrator ruling undermines discipline and accountability in the police department.
“Two officers who committed completely unjustified use of force, documented by video evidence, are now back on the force,” he said. “Every officer who is fired now knows that choosing the arbitration process will likely win reinstatement.”
Wagner has a pending federal lawsuit against the city and a number of police officers, alleging that his civil rights were violated during the arrest.

He was sentenced to 60 days in jail for a misdemeanor attempted assault on Officer Scott Zymball. Wagner was found guilty of throwing a punch at Zymball.

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.