Fairfax County Police Watch: cop used unreasonable force

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A cop used unreasonable force when she allegedly kicked a woman in the groin area while the woman was restrained and partially inside the backseat of a cruiser, the Los Angeles Police Commission said in a report.

Alesia Thomas, 35, was transported to hospital and pronounced dead on July 22 — hours after officers tracked her to her South Los Angeles home to arrest her on suspicion of child endangerment.

Thomas had abandoned her 3-year-old and 12-year-old children at a police station at about 2 a.m. Police said she dropped off the children because she was a drug addict who could not care for them. Officers at the station learned the children expected their grandmother to pick them up.

An autopsy released in January found that Thomas had cocaine in her system when she went into cardiac arrest, but it also said it was unclear why Thomas died, because it was difficult to know how the struggle may have contributed. Thomas also had a history of bipolar disorder, it said.

According to the report released Thursday, an officer knocked the 228-pound Thomas to the ground by sweeping her legs out from under her. Two other officers handcuffed her as they said she was resisting arrest, and at multiple points Thomas was carried by officers as they tried to lead her to a patrol car.

Thomas is described as initially "fidgety, wide eyed, sweating" according to an officer and later "incoherent and kept asking the officers to let her go and told them on several occasions to kill her," the report states.

At one point Thomas requested an ambulance, but when questioned by an officer as to why, asked for a glass of water. No ambulance was called, the report states.

Officers trying to devise a way to get her into the patrol car used a restraint device around her ankles. At one point audio captured her saying "I can't breathe" but officers said they did not hear her, according to the report.

Thomas who was sprawled across the cruiser's back seat with her legs restrained was kicking the window. An officer used profanity toward Thomas including threatening to kick her if she didn't' "knock it off," the report states. In all, the officer used her feet "seven times on three separate occasions to push or kick (Thomas) in the upper thigh, groin and abdomen area," the report states.

The officer states she did this to move Thomas into the patrol car.

Once Thomas was in the car, video from the cruiser shows her "eyes roll back" and her body roll toward the driver's seat before officers reported that she appeared unconscious. Thomas did not appear to be breathing when she was removed from the back seat. She arrived at the hospital in full cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead by a doctor there, the report states.

The commission noted the "apparent indifference" and comments made by the officer who allegedly kicked Thomas in the groin area. The commission was unable to determine whether the officer actually kicked Thomas or was just trying to use her foot to push Thomas into the car. But they determined that the decision to use her foot or leg to move Thomas into the cruiser was "ineffective and inappropriate."

The commission also found that three other officers used appropriate force but that their actions may be deemed misconduct when two officers did not request an ambulance when asked and another officer possibly made false statements to investigators. A supervisor may not have exercised proper control over the situation, according to the report.

The potential misconduct will be investigated by the department. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office is also investigating the incident.

Meanwhile four of the officers are working administrative assignments at other stations and one was allowed to return to the field after her role was deemed minor, said Cmdr. Andrew Smith. The officers are not identified in the report.

The department has not released the videotape of the incident and denied a request for a copy from The Associated Press, citing the ongoing investigation.

Attorney Steven Effres, who represents Thomas' daughter, said he is still trying to obtain the video and other necessary materials to "find out the truth and details about what happened that evening."

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.