Fairfax County Police Watch: Officer charged with buying drugs, leaking information

A Frankfort police officer has been charged with intimidation and phone harassment, charges related to his alleged beating of a former girlfriend in the summer of 2012.

Officer Donald Walsh, 30, of Monee, was arrested Wednesday in a Will County courtroom. His bail was set at $50,000.

He’s accused of threatening the woman in a June 2012 phone call that she secretly recorded — about a month before Walsh allegedly choked and struck her at her Mokena residence. The woman kept a copy of the recording and gave another copy to her sister, who locked it in a safe-deposit box, prosecutors said.

Walsh has denied attacking the woman. He has been on administrative leave without pay since his arrest in July 2012.

Mokena police learned about the telephone recording when the attorneys in Walsh’s battery case did — when told by the victim’s sister at the start of Walsh’s trial on Nov. 20.

Mokena police had investigated the July 2012 attack for criminal purposes, but Frankfort police conducted an internal inquiry for disciplinary reasons. Frankfort Police Chief John Burica and Deputy Chief Robert Krause testified during a recent hearing on the recording that they discussed it with village attorney David Silverman and decided the tape would not be used in their disciplinary case against Walsh.

The two police officials said they did not tell Mokena police or the special prosecutor in the battery case that the recording existed.

Circuit Court Judge Edward Burmila found that to be a violation of the evidentiary process and said Wednesday that the prosecution will not be allowed to use the recorded call in the battery trial, which is set to resume Jan. 13.

Defense rests in trial of ex-Fullerton officers charged with killing homeless man

SANTA ANA, California — A defense pathologist testified Wednesday that a homeless man who died after a 2011 struggle with Fullerton police had an enlarged heart from years of methamphetamine abuse.

Dr. Steven Karch said Kelly Thomas probably suffered heart failure during the struggle, the Orange County Register reported (http://bit.ly/1cRFHvm ).

Thomas' death was "precipitated by a spontaneous and concurrent psychotic episode" brought about by his drug use that was a factor in his violent encounter with police, Karch testified.

Karch said he disagreed with an Orange County pathologist who conducted the autopsy and concluded that Thomas died, in part, from lack of oxygen to the brain caused by compression of his chest and head injuries received during the confrontation.

Karch was the 13th and final witness called by the defense in the trial of two former Fullerton police officers.

Manuel Ramos, 39, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, and Jay Cicinelli, 41, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force.

A third officer will be tried separately on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Thomas, 37, had a history of drug use, citations for minor crimes and violent behavior. The officers' attorneys argued that he became violently combative after he was stopped and questioned July 5, 2011. He stopped breathing and was removed from life support five days later.

Much of the incident was captured by a security camera and audio recordings from officers' body microphones. The case garnered national attention at the time and fueled months of local protests that led to the resignation of the police chief and a recall election in the small college town.

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.