Fairfax County Police Watch: This weeks weasel cops

Apparently cop unfamilair with the word “No”

Edmund Ansara police officer has filed a lawsuit against the City of Millville NJ claiming that he was wrongfully suspended for over a year. .The lawsuit stems from an incident on or about Nov. 7, 2011, when a Millville police captain allegedly ordered Ansara to void an otherwise valid traffic summons, according to the suit.Ansara’s attorney. He said that the woman who received the ticket is connected to either a Millville elected official or a former police officer, and the voiding of the ticket was done “as a favor for a connected friend.”Ansara did not name the official.

Federal authorities have charged another former Jackson Miss. Cop with bribery.Robert Nikita Shegog was charged in a criminal information, a type of charge usually filed when a defendant plans to plead guilty. It says Shegog solicited and accepted bribes valued at more than $5,000 in transactions related to the department from December 2009 to September 2010.

Joletta Vallejo a Wichita cop and two other people were charged with conspiracy and wire fraud after an internal investigation by police concluded that they were involved in scheme to keep the officer from losing her job, according to U.S. Attorne.

A New York City cop named Edwin Vargas hired computer hacks that he was supposed to arrest to break into email accounts on his behalf. He used the network of hackers to obtain the login information of at least 43 different accounts that were tied to some 30 people; this included 19 cops he worked with.

Chicago cop Harold Rodriguez has been accused of illegally arresting four men after they refused to pay him a bribe. The complaint says Rodriguez stole money from their wallets after they were arrested.

West Orange NJ police Lt. Richard Levens has been charged with theft and suspended.

UNION SPRINGS, Sgt. Nathan Williams pulled over a Hispanic driver Williams suspected was drunk. During the course of the traffic stop, Sgt. Williams allegedly took the man's billfold and stole hundreds of dollars. Williams faces two charges; third degree theft and an ethics violation, a misdemeanor and a felony.

Rick Earl a Pittsburgh cop, charged with insurance fraud almost two years ago lost some of his police powers, but he didn’t lose his job. Earle is being paid his full salary while serving probation.

St. Charles County Mo. sheriff’s deputy Christopher E. Hunt was found guilty in August of felony burglary for entering the home and misdemeanor counts of assault and property damage. He was sentenced to five years in prison

Logansport Ind. cop Carlos Leal was sentenced to house arrest after misusing a city-issued gas card. The judge sentenced Leal to one year and 180 days on house arrest. Leal can petition to serve the final 180 days on probation. He will also pay $1,630.30 in restitution to the Logansport Police Department.

Steven Buglio one of the two Vineland NJ cops who stole funds from the local police union they helped oversee has been sentenced to two years of probation. Vineland will also will pay $40,000 in restitution to Police Benevolent Association Local 266.

Antonio C. Martinez a Chicago cop who committed robberies with gang members while in uniform was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty in November 2011 to racketeering, drug and robbery conspiracies, and was sentenced in Hammond, Ind. Court records show Martinez and another officer committed robberies on behalf of the Latin Kings — sometimes while in uniform and while driving police vehicles. They stole drugs, weapons and cash, and would sometimes get a cut of the money they stole, a written statement from the Department of Justice said.

A New Orleans police captain named Michael Roussel was convicted of plotting to arrange a contract to provide security for Entergy at inflated rates and then skim off the top has had his prison sentence reduced by more than three years.

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.