Fairfax County Police Watch: Couple wants cops trained

ATLANTA -- An Atlanta couple believes too many of them are too quick to shoot family pets.

"We raised an incredibly obedient and well-mannered dog that didn't deserve to be shot," Matthew Rodriguez told 11 Alive News on Tuesday.

He and his wife, Kelley, claim their 2-year-old dog, Jane, was killed by an Atlanta Police officer for no good reason.

It happened November 10th after an accidental automated 911 call from their Southeast Atlanta home.

Kelley said she talked to a 911 dispatcher to say everything was okay, but then two APD officers showed up at the front door.

"I opened the door and my dogs ran out like they always do and within two seconds a police officer turned and shot her," she told 11 Alive.

She said the 2-year-old lab-pitbull mix, Jane, died before they could get her help.

A second dog, just a puppy, was unhurt.

In his police report, the officer who shot Jane claimed he only fired after the dogs came at him, he injured his knee falling to avoid them, and Kelley refused his repeated calls for her to call off the animals.

She disputes that account, saying the dogs were friendly and the officer fired almost immediately.

She has launched a Facebook page called "Justice for Jane Our Family Dog", that already has more than 1,000 likes.

Kelley said she's linked up with other families who've had similar tragedies, which they claim are all too common.

She wants police officers to receive special training in how to deal with such situations, like Colorado requires.

"We want law enforcement to get training on how to deal with family dogs in non-lethal and non-excessively violent ways," she added.

Atlanta Police sent 11 Alive a written statement that said, in part, "Police officers face difficult circumstances on a daily basis while carrying out their duties, including occasional attacks from dogs that are unleashed or unrestrained by their owners."

It also said the shooting of the Rodriguez family dog, "is currently under investigation by OPS (Office of Professional Standards); if the investigation determines that this was not a justified use of force, the officer will be disciplined in accordance with our policies."

The APD statement added, "The loss of any life, human or animal, is something the Department does not take lightly."

Meanwhile, Kelley and Matthew Rodriguez said they are considering hiring a lawyer for a possible civil suit.

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.