Fairfax County Police Watch: SAPD officer suspended for ignoring calls for back-up

SAN ANTONIO -- Earlier this summer, the San Antonio Police Department suspended one of its officers who has history of disobeying superiors.

In documents just released, the officer was suspended after a four-month internal investigation concluded he ignored calls to back-up other officers and then screamed at one of his supervisors.

Officer Ruben Saldaña was suspended 15 days in June for his actions during the early morning hours of December 27, 2012.

According to internal affairs documents, Saldaña and two other officers responded around 2:10 a.m. to 911 calls for shots fired in the 3400 block of Oakdale.

After searching there and the Babcock and Callaghan area for possible suspects, Saldaña testified he drove to a nearby parking lot to work on paperwork.

A supervisor testified that Saldaña's Global Positioning tracker was then turned off.

Around 2:25 a.m., police dispatch called for all available officers to respond to Loop 1604 and Braun Road for a car accident with life-threatening injuries.

The scene was approximately ten miles from Saldaña's location.

The accident seriously injured two people, including the driver of a Chevy Camaro who was later arrested for intoxication assault.

Officers on scene requested additional support to help clear a spot for an AirLIFE helicopter, then made a second request for support after spotting a wrong way driver near the scene of the accident.

Saldaña testified he did not "hear the dispatcher call us in."

A sergeant confronted Saldaña and a second officer when they returned to the Northwest Substation to end their shifts around 3 a.m.

The internal investigation indicates the second officer filled out paperwork explaining where he was between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.

The documents do not indicate if he was reprimanded.

When Saldaña was asked to fill out similar paperwork, a form called a 200-OR, several officers testified he "became irate" and screamed at a sergeant in front of other officers.

The internal affairs investigation revealed Saldaña was also suspended three days in February 2012 for insubordination.

Prior to the December incident, Saldaña was also placed in SAPD's "Officer Concern Program".

According to the department, the program "identifies unacceptable behavioral traits in officers before those behavioral traits develop into disciplinary problems for the officer and the Department."

Saldaña is eligible to have eight days of pay reimbursed if he avoids any further violations during the next year.

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.