Fairfax County Police Watch: DC Officer Arrested for Child Porn

DC Officer Arrested for Child Porn

A D.C. police officer was arrested and charged with production of child pornography while on duty, the Metropolitan Police Department announced Tuesday.

Officer Marc Washington is accused of taking digital photographs of a 15-year-old girl after ordering her to remove her clothes.

Washington -- an officer with MPD since 2006 -- was arrested Monday, shortly after the victim's mother called police, authorities said.

According to charging documents, Washington first made contact with the family when the girl's mother called police to report her missing. Washington went to the family's home to take a missing persons report.

The girl returned home Sunday afternoon, but later that night, according to authorities, Washington went back to the apartment and asked to speak to the girl privately. He entered her bedroom and ordered her to remove her clothing, telling her he needed to take photographs of any injuries she'd sustained while missing, say charging documents.

The girl said she wasn't hurt, but he told her it was part of the procedure and she complied, the documents say.

After he left, the victim told her mother, who called police.

Washington was pulled over while still on duty. Authorities recovered a dozen images of the girl from his camera, including nine that had been deleted but were recoverable, authorities said.

Authorities also found other photos -- including nude images -- of unidentified people on Washington's camera.

They said at least two of the subjects appear to be minors.

"We invest a great amount of time and effort to ensure that we are hiring the right people and we continue to proactively monitor integrity across the department," said Police Chief Cathy Lanier. "But to learn of an allegation of this kind against a person who is sworn to protect our children, it is both shocking and disturbing. We are fortunate that someone came forward to alert us of this behavior to ensure that we prevent future victims."

Police are working to learn whether there may be additional victims, they said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact authorities at 202-727-9099 or Youth Investigations Division at 202-576-6768. Those wishing to remain anonymous can submit tips by text messaging 50411.

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

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.

The law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty, it hits some one else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime. Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. Louis D. Brandeis, part of his dissent in the case "Olmstead v. United States", 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928)