Fairfax County Police Watch: Las Vegas police officer indicted for sexual harassment

By FRANCIS McCABE

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A Las Vegas police officer was indicted by a grand jury on charges he sexually intimidated and harassed women he met on duty, prosecutors said Friday.

Solomon Coleman faces two counts each of oppression under color of law and gross lewdness and one count each of indecent exposure and taking pictures of a person’s private area, all gross misdemeanors.

Authorities said Coleman developed a pattern of starting “relationships” with women he met at crime scenes and on routine calls, using his authority as an officer to gain their trust.

Coleman’s misdeeds were uncovered in June after a woman complained about his behavior. The Review-Journal does not publish the names of alleged sex crime victims.

After other officers took her boyfriend to jail following a domestic disturbance, Coleman stayed behind.

A female officer had already taken photos of bruises on her neck, arms and back, but Coleman said he also needed to “check for bruises on her ass,” according to a police report.

The woman told Coleman she didn’t have bruises there, but he “insisted on checking anyway,” the report said. She said Coleman pulled down her shorts and underwear to her knees and asked her to bend over on the bed.

The woman said Coleman stayed behind to give her paperwork, but then followed her into her bedroom to help her look for missing house keys.

She felt forced to comply when Coleman pulled down her pants.

At one point, her son walked into the bedroom before being ushered out by the officer.

Coleman later exposed himself to her in her bathroom.

When the officer came back after his shift, the woman saw him through the blinds but wouldn’t open the door, she said.

Detectives checked Coleman’s patrol log, which showed the officer left her home 36 minutes after his fellow officers.

After the first complaint, investigators dug through Coleman’s cellphone records and patrol logs. They found another victim, but she was not even aware of what happened.

Coleman used his phone to record more than 20 minutes of a personal sex video the woman had stored on her phone, the report said. The video had been on Coleman’s phone for a year when detectives found it.

Coleman’s defense lawyer Josh Tomsheck declined to comment.

Coleman remains on house arrest pending an arraignment hearing set for Jan. 16 before Judge Valorie Vega.

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.