Fairfax County Police Watch: Concerns Over Police Brutality Once Again Arise in Dover

DOVER, Del.- In Dover, concerns over police brutality continue to take center stage. On Wednesday night, nearly 50 community members gathered at the Mount Zion AME Church in downtown Dover to discuss what they call police brutality in their home city.
At the event were state legislatures and community leaders as well as members from legal groups like the NAACP and the ACLU. Many, such as Shawn Russell, also told their stories of what they call police brutality.
"I left work," he said as he told the crowd about his incident that took place on September 25. "After work, I was pulled over by Troop 2, and they forced me out of the vehicle. They had guns drawn on me. They searched me, handcuffed me, searched me several times, searched his vehicle.
Russell said the police were looking for drugs in his car, but didn't find any after an extensive search. He said he is now looking for a lawyer so that he can sue the state police for harassment. After hearing about the incident, WBOC reached out to State Police, but since this allegation is so new, they have not yet released a statement on the incident.
The meeting follows two separate allegations of police brutality directed at the Dover Police Department. The accusations were made by Antonio Barlow and James Wilson, both African-American men who said they were treated unfairly and with "excessive force" by the police officers.
Wilson has already filed a suit for $50 million in damages from the police. Barlow has not filed for a lawsuit, as of Wednesday night. Dover police maintains that their department has never allowed police brutality. They have also told WBOC that they have video that proves the police department acted appropriately when arresting Barlow, although they have not released this footage.
Russel, who maintains he was treated unfairly, said he didn't know where to turn after the incident.
"It still feels like I have nobody to turn to for help," he said. "But I'm going to continue to try to get help because if this has happened to me, it's happened to other people.
Roy Sudler Jr. from the Social Action Commission, chaired the discussion at the meeting. He said people should not jump to rash conclusions about these incidents. He said the event was all about opening up a dialogue with the police department.
"We're trying to assist law enforcement agencies," he said. "But at the same time to help bridge that gap of trust and mistrust between the community and the law enforcement agencies."

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.