Fairfax County Police Watch: Police face misconduct allegations over Carnival incident

New Orleans, La. - 17-year-old Sidney Newman and 18-year-old Ferdinand Hunt say they were hanging out together in the 700 block of Conti Sunday night after going to a parade.

Hunt's mother, an 8th District NOPD officer, was working nearby. The young men say Hunt's mother had gone to grab them something to eat.

Surveillance video obtained by FOX 8 shows Hunt leaning up against the building while Newman sat next to him.

"We were just sitting there laughing and out of nowhere, I saw two guys grab Ferd," says Newman.

"All of a sudden, I'm on the wall. A whole bunch of people just came up and threw me up against the wall," says Hunt.

Those people were plain clothes law enforcement officers, nine of them State Troopers and one NOPD officer. The two young men were taken down to the ground.

"I was scared. I didn't know what was happening. I thought they were trying to rob us," says Hunt.

"At that point another guy came up and grabbed me by my hair and he was on top of me. At the same time, I'm calling, 'Ferd.' I'm asking Ferd, 'Where's your mother?'" says Newman.

Hunt's mother does approach and the two young men are allowed to get up. Not long after releasing the two men, the plain clothes officers simply walked away.

"Why take a child or a young man that's 130 pounds and sling him across? Why not just walk up to him and say, 'What are you doing? What's your name or why are you here?' That's a human being" says Sidney's mother, Hazel Newman. "I would hate to think that it was because these boys were young black boys. I would hate to think that."

State Police say any allegations of racial profiling are absurd.

The troopers were part of the Mardi Gras plain clothes detail. They say they were looking for juvenile violations, illegal weapons and narcotic activity at the time.

While on patrol, State Police say they noticed two individuals who appeared to be juveniles and decided to ID them. The troopers say they had detained both of them when they were approached by an NOPD officer who was interfering with the investigation and claiming it was her son.

They say the troopers verified the identification of the two young men and turned them over to the NOPD officer. LSP spokeswoman Melissa Matey said Thursday that the agency continues to investigate the incident.

"This was Mardi Gras time, so you're going to sling a kid rather than walk up and talk to them? That is incredible," says Newman.

NOPD says the commander of the 8th District did see the video and, as it relates to the action of the NOPD officer, there were no obvious violations of misconduct.

The NAACP wants federal and state agencies to look into the case, claiming it shows racial profiling. And the two boys and their parents met with FBI officials Thursday, asking them to conduct a probe. The FBI hasn't said whether they'll do so, but did tell the families they would be back in touch.

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.