Fairfax County Police Watch: Hearing officer went too far in Lubbock police officer's suspension review, appellate court rules

An Amarillo appeals court has agreed with the city of Lubbock that a hearing officer overstepped his authority in reducing a police officer’s suspension for excessive force.

A three-judge panel of the Seventh Court of Appeals on Friday, Sept. 13, reversed 72nd District Judge Ruben Reyes’ ruling that the city had no standing to appeal the hearing officer’s decision regarding Lubbock police officer Christopher Hennsley’s suspension to the court.

The appeals court remanded the case to Reyes for reconsideration.

Then-Chief Dale Holton suspended Hennsley indefinitely — in essence firing the officer — in June 2010 for using excessive force and violating several other police policies during a January 2010 traffic stop.

Hennsley, then an 11-year member of the force, appealed. Hearing officer William McKee in November 2011 reduced the suspension to 15 days and awarded him back pay.

McKee reduced the suspension because he refused to consider any charges in Holton’s indefinite suspension order that hadn’t also been raised in the initial complaint Capt. Scott Hudgens wrote. Hudgens’ memo started an internal affairs investigation of the incident.

McKee held that there was no reason Hudgens’ original complaint could not have been amended while the internal affairs investigation continued.

The Seventh Court of Appeals decided state law didn’t allow McKee the discretion to pick and choose which parts of Holton’s suspension order would be reviewed.

The case arose from a traffic stop near the La Kumbia nightclub on Avenue Q that involved several Lubbock police officers.

A police dashboard video shows Hennsley smashing the rear window of the Ford Mustang he and another officer pursued in their vehicles.

The video also shows Hennsley running up to one of the vehicle’s occupants, who had left the car with his hands up, and kicking him in the stomach.

Other charges against Hennsley including making a misleading radio call, trying to subdue a resisting person without holstering his handgun, using his stun gun without warning other officers and discharging the stun gun with one hand while he had his handgun in the other hand.

Chief Justice Brian Quinn and Justices James T. Campbell and Mackey K. Hancock were the panel that heard the case.

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.