Fairfax County Police Watch: Fired Pa. cop guilty of man's holding cell beating

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A western Pennsylvania police officer who was fired after he refused a random drug test last year has been convicted of beating a handcuffed prisoner in a holding cell and then trying to cover it up.

Walter R. Johnson, 38, of Oakdale, was convicted at a non-jury trial of simple assault and official oppression — the cover-up charge. An Allegheny County judge on Monday also sentenced him to two years' probation and two weeks in jail, though Johnson doesn't have to serve that time until January. Johnson's defense attorney, James Wymard, didn't immediately return a call for comment and the officer doesn't have a listed home telephone.

Johnson was a patrolman in Avalon, a tiny borough near Pittsburgh, when he threw the prisoner, 49-year-old Robert Szilagyi, into a holding cell wall so hard the man's jaw was broken and his teeth loosened — including one later found lodged in his airway. Avalon police alerted Allegheny County detectives after they learned surveillance video of the April 2012 beating existed following Johnson's firing last July.

According to a criminal complaint the detectives filed against Johnson, Avalon police first encountered Szilagyi after a report that he was fighting with another man that night. Police contend Szilagyi ran away before police arrived and was found hiding in bushes, then struggled and fought with officers while they were handcuffing him.

On that night, medics were called to take Szilagyi to a hospital after he was found to have injuries in the police station holding cell — though police at that time attributed the injuries to his earlier struggle with officers, according to the complaint.

The detectives determined, however, that security video from the holding cell showed Johnson walking Szilagyi to the cell at which point he "literally throws Szilagyi, with his hands still handcuffed behind his back, into the cell ... propelling the victim forward with such force as to cause him to leave his feet, hurtling head-first toward the floor and rear wall of the holding cell," according to their complaint.

Another officer enters the cell and leaves with Johnson, closing the door, before a third officer arrives and Szilagyi can be seen "with a large puddle of blood drops on the floor in front of him," the detectives said.

Online court records show Szilagyi pleaded guilty to simple assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct stemming from the earlier fight and encounter with police and was sentenced to a year's probation. He could not immediately be located for comment because he's in the county jail awaiting trial on charges including aggravated assault, drunken driving and burglary stemming from two separate and unrelated incidents earlier this year.

Szilagyi's criminal defense attorney for his April 2012 arrest said he couldn't comment on whether Szilagyi pursued a claim for his injuries, citing a confidentiality agreement. Federal and county court records show no record of a lawsuit.

Avalon police officials did not immediately return calls for comment on the verdict, or about the request for a drug test that prompted Johnson's firing.

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.