Fairfax County Police Watch: Protesters Demand Arrest Of Cop Who Fatally Tasered Teen

MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Oct 6 (Reuters) - More than 200 people marched through Miami Beach on Sunday, clogging tourist-filled sidewalks to demand the arrest of a policeman who fired a stun gun at a graffiti artist who died in police custody.

The protesters alleged that Officer Jorge Mercado used excessive force when he used a Taser on Israel Hernandez-Llach, 18, during an arrest attempt in August.

"He was sentenced like a prisoner when he goes before a firing squad," Hernandez-Llach's father, Israel Hernandez Bandera, said on the steps of Miami Beach City Hall.

Friends, family and supporters carried signs reading "Paint is temporary, death is forever" and chanted "No justice, no peace" in English and Spanish.

Hernandez-Llach was prolific graffiti artist nicknamed "Reefa," and the march was led by the Justice for Reefa Committee and the American Community Council. Marchers asked that Mercado be fired and arrested and that the Miami Beach Police Department change its policy regarding use of stun guns.

Police discovered Colombian-born Hernandez-Llach spray-painting the wall of an abandoned McDonald's early on the morning of Aug. 6. The teenager fled, evading police for several minutes before he was cornered and stunned with the Taser.

He died shortly afterward and friends who were with him told Reuters they heard and saw officers celebrating and high fiving while the young man's body lay on the ground.

Medical examiners have yet to release a toxicology report or cause of death. Miami Beach Police have declined to comment pending an ongoing investigation.

The teenager's father submitted a letter late last month to the U.S. Department of Justice and President Barack Obama alleging that police used excessive force and refused to provide him with information regarding the incident.

"I'm not an investigator, just a broken father who wants answers," he wrote.

He said his son's body showed signs of mistreatment, including an injury to the forehead, after it was turned over to the family for the funeral.

"My biggest concern is was it due to the Taser or was it from blows (by police)," said his father.

Hernandez-Llach's sister, Offir Hernandez, disputed speculation that her brother was on drugs at the time of the incident, but said that according to friends he had smoked marijuana that morning.

"He took care of himself," she told Reuters. "He was very healthy and wouldn't even drink sodas and ate salads and fish. He'd never put acid in his body."

Hernandez-Llach's family has also filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court against the Miami Beach Police Department and Mercado, seeking an undisclosed amount for damages and alleging the police used "unnecessary, excessive and unconstitutional force."

The Colombian-born artist was slightly built and unarmed, and "officers had no reasonable basis to fear for their own safety or the safety of the public," the lawsuit said.

Mercado was named in several prior complaints according to police Internal Affairs reports obtained by Reuters. He was disciplined for failing a drug test in 2011 but was exonerated in several other cases, including punching a man in the face during an off-duty fight in a men's room in 2007.

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.