Fairfax County Police Watch: activists say chief’s shootings concern

By Lauren Gold, Pasadena Star-News

PASADENA>> Community activists said revelations this week that Police Chief Phillip Sanchez took part in five officer-involved shootings during his career as a police officer in Santa Monica are cause for concern.
The issue of police shootings is already a hot-button issue in Pasadena and the news of Sanchez’s own past added fuel to the fire for residents who have long advocated for community oversight of the police department. Sanchez oversees all officer involved shooting investigations and was chosen by City Manager Michael Beck after he was vetted by a secret panel of citizens.

Although Beck acknowledged he was aware of the shootings, Mayor Bill Bogaard said he had no prior knowledge of cases in which Sanchez fired on suspects.
“The revelations are cause for concern,” said Attorney Martin Gordon, of the Pasadena Community Coalition. “I believe at the minimum the community will ask, why there was no transparency about this during the original hiring process? Would this have produced a different outcome or a different oversight protocol? What should we do now?”
Gordon added that increased police oversight is still at the top of his list despite the City Council’s rejection last month of Councilman John Kennedy’s proposal to commission a study on the creation of an independent review body for the department. The majority of council members argued that the Public Safety Committee, made up of four council members, is sufficient oversight.

“Whether it is Chief Sanchez or someone else, it is clear that we need some clear form of community oversight of the PPD,” Gordon said. “The Public Safety Committee basically rubber stamps the Chief’s reports. That is not oversight. Having a robust oversight committee would not only help us deal with the myriad of issues facing the Police Department and their personnel, but also help us establish a more clear criteria of our expectations for any chief of the PPD and our officers.”
Sanchez’s officer involved shootings were revealed in a leaked video of a deposition in the lawsuit filed against the city by the family of Kendrec McDade, an unarmed teenager shot and killed by police last March. In the video, McDade family attorney Caree Harper, who is off camera, questions whether Sanchez can objectively evaluate his officers based on his own past shootings.

Sanchez says in the video that he feels he is able to make objective decisions on police shootings.
Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Tracey Ibarra said Sanchez was both criminally and administratively cleared in all the incidents, each of which involved an armed or thought-to-be-armed suspect in a dangerous
“How is the chief going to objectively handle shootings like that when he’s been involved in five in the past?” Ertll said. “Even if he didn’t have those five officer involved shootings in his past I would still be advocating for (community oversight) because he’s the chief of police and we know that when someone is running an institution most of the time they will support the actions by their subordinates and I think a lot of times that’s why we need an independent commission to objectively review cases that involve officer involved shootings or other issues too.”

Former NAACP president Joe Brown said he was aware of Sanchez’s officer-involved shootings at the time Sanchez was hired, after being approached by the NAACP branch in Santa Monica. He said, the fact that others in the community including elected officials did not know that information proves there is a need in Pasadena for more transparency.
“If we had had transparency all of our elected persons in the city would have known what they know this morning and then it wouldn’t have been such a shock to the other readership for the newspaper,” Brown said. “I think now it’s going to make the chief a lot better because now he has nothing under the table, there is nothing that has not been revealed.”

Regardless of the chief’s personal record, Brown said there is no question that there are police issues in the city, and that he and other former NAACP presidents have begun working with Sanchez and other city officials to rectify them and improve relationships with the community.
Brown said the group, which included City Manager Michael Beck and Assistant City Manger Steve Mermell, met last week and plans to meet again next week.

“Our number one goal is so that Chief Sanchez will be able to see the citizenry in certain portions of this community are not receptive of the police techniques and tactics,” Brown said. “I believe there is going to be some tweaking of the policies that are on the table right now. ... We need to go back to the community stakeholders and share that something is being accomplished. It will help to move the city forward.”

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.