Fairfax County Police Watch: 10 metro police officers face corruption charges

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ten metro Atlanta law officers are in police custody, accused of using their guns, badges and authority to facilitate drug deals under orders of a street gang.

An FBI SWAT team arrested the current and former cops Tuesday for taking payoffs — some as low as $700 — to protect cocaine deals taking place in crowded shopping centers and school parking lots. Five alleged accomplices also were arrested.

“Obviously the breadth of the corruption is very troubling,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Yates. “It is certainly the most (officers) this office has charged in a long time.

“These are people they are supposed to be arresting, not taking money from,” she said.

The arrested officers came from wide swath of law agencies: Atlanta, Stone Mountain, Forest Park and the DeKalb County police and Sheriff’s Office. Officers from MARTA and a contract agent for the Federal Protective Service also were arrested.

Some were long-term veterans. Senior Atlanta police Officer Kelvin Allen had been with the department for 20 years. APD announced shortly after Allen’s arrest that he had been suspended.

DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown and Atlanta Police Chief George Turner joined Yates as she announced the arrests.

“The department has been and will continue to be cooperative with federal authorities to ensure that Atlanta police officers involved in any illegal activity are brought to justice,” the APD said in a statement.

At least some officers appeared willing to kill to protect their gang employers — although no violence was reported. Just before a deal with a new buyer Jan. 30, DeKalb police Officer Dorian Williams told confederate Shannon Bass that wounding was not an option. “I gotta (expletive) kill him, I just can’t shoot him,” Williams said in a secretly recorded conversation, according to the federal affidavit. Bass was among the accused accomplices arrested.

Williams recommended using a high school parking lot for the afternoon transactions because the activity and backpacks wouldn’t look suspicious, the affidavit said.

A former DeKalb County Jail officer, Monyette McLaurin, lied to his criminal colleagues by claiming he was an active duty deputy, the affidavit said, and he discussed with Gregory Lee Harvey, who also was arrested, the need to possibly kill someone.

Attempts to reach Allen, Williams and McLaurin for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Authorities haven’t released a lot of details but Yates said the investigation is ongoing. The accused officers were arrested quickly and without warning, FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Giulano said. Some of the alleged illegal transactions took place last month, Giulano said.

The case began in August 2011 as a street gang investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, whose undercover agents learned the gang had officers on the payroll for protection, Yates said. The FBI took over the police corruption aspects of the case.

The cops were recruited by individuals who offered to provide police protection for a street gang’s drug deals — from both honest cops who might arrest them and crooks who would rob them. The officer and the broker divided payments that ranged as high $7,000 and as low as $2,200 — sometimes with the broker with getting a sweeter share, according to federal affidavits. A broker reported one officer received only a $700 share.

The officers were in full uniform and often driving patrol vehicles, and would stand stand guard as informants and drug traffickers swapped backpacks containing cash and what was supposed to be cocaine, the affidavit said. A DeKalb officer charged $800 extra for the use of the patrol car, the affidavit said.

The FBI and ATF set up a sting by having an informant tell gang members and their associates that he needed police protection for upcoming drug deals. Three people — Shannon Bass, 38, and Elizabeth Coss, 35, both of Atlanta, and Jeffry B. Mannery Jr, 38, of Tucker — provided the informant with names of officers who wanted to provide security, the affidavit said. Coss and Mannery also were among those arrested. The authorities used counterfeit cocaine in the sting.

The officers were engaged in repeated transactions that trafficked enough kilos of cocaine to be eligible for a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, Yates said. Williams, for instance, is accused of splitting $18,000, although his exact share wasn’t clear.

At least one man allegedly attempted to get in on the protection racket by falsely claiming to be a Clayton County police officer, federal authorities said. They charged Alexander B. Hill, 22, in the drug trafficking case for playing a role in what he thought were three cocaine deals involving multiple kilograms.

ATF Special Agent in Charge Scott Sweetow would not name the street gang involved, but he suggested the public corruption aspects would be far ranging.

“I can say this is probably not the last you will be hearing of this case,” he said

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.