Fairfax County Police Watch: Judge releases evidence that convinced him to jail Indy police officer charged in crash

FORT WAYNE, Indiana — A photo of a half-empty vodka bottle that was in a pickup truck was part of the evidence that persuaded a judge to order an Indianapolis police officer held until his trial on drunken driving charges in a fatal accident.

Allen County Judge John Surbeck, Jr. released about 100 pages of evidence Friday that influenced his decision to revoke bond for David Bisard in May.

Bisard was charged with reckless homicide, drunken driving and other counts in August 2010 after his cruiser slammed into two motorcycles stopped at an intersection, killing 30-year-old motorcyclist Eric Wells and injured two other people.

Two hours after the crash, a blood test showed that Bisard's blood-alcohol level was more than twice Indiana's legal limit, though officers at the crash scene said they did not suspect he was drunk. An internal probe in 2011 concluded that the investigation had been botched and riddled with errors, but some critics suspected police were covering for one of their own.

Bisard was free on bond until he was arrested again and charged with drunken driving in an April 27 crash in Indianapolis.

The evidence related to that second crash included dozens of documents submitted by both sides.

Allen County Superior Court Executive Jerry Noble said he did not believe the release of the evidence to the public prior Bisard's trial would complicate any future appeal. The trial is set to begin Oct. 14 and is expected to take up to a month.

"Our emphasis is to balance the importance and need for a fair and impartial trial for the defendant against the need for the media to know and provide information for the public," he said.

The trial in the 2010 crash was moved from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne due to heavy media coverage in central Indiana. If convicted, he could face 20 or more years in prison.

The evidence released Friday included two 911 calls involving the April crash, in which a pickup truck driven by Bisard crashed into a guardrail. Authorities said he had blood-alcohol level of 0.22 percent, nearly 3 times the legal limit.

One caller said the truck was swerving, and the other said Bisard appeared to be drunk after the crash.

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.