Fairfax County Police Watch: Roseville officer charged with shoplifting

ZANESVILLE — A Roseville auxiliary police officer was charged with petty theft after a Tuesday incident at Walmart on Maple Avenue.
James Carroll, 66, of Roseville, pleaded not guilty to the charge Thursday morning in Zanesville Municipal Court. Petty theft — theft of property or services valued at less than $1,000 — is a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable by up to six months in jail.
According to the police report, Carroll was cooperative with security officials when they confronted him about the alleged shoplifting offense.Carroll spoke with the Times Recorder about the incident, and he said it was never his intention to leave the store without paying. He said he was simply trying to avoid traffic within the store when he left the Subway restaurant and weaved his cart around a recycling container near the exit.
“I was under the impression that, if you walked out of the store with something, you are shoplifting,” Carroll said. “I never left. I didn’t even come close to the door.”
Roseville Police Chief Jeff Slack said Carroll has been an auxiliary officer since 1979. Slack said auxiliaries used to be paid but aren’t anymore. There are no discipline-related incidents in Carroll’s personnel file, and Slack said he has “never had any problems from James.”
Carroll said the reason the items in question already were bagged was because he recycles the plastic.
“I carry the plastic bags with me into the store,” Carroll said. “I’ve done that for two to three years. ... I put one of the items in a plastic bag, and that’s what made the security people think I was stealing.”
The 34-year-veteran officer said his second mistake was turning left instead of right as he exited the Subway inside Walmart. Carroll said he had left his cart outside Subway while he went inside to get a sandwich. When he exited, he said he was trying to avoid a cluster of people in front of the Subway entrance, so he “weaved around the receptacle.” That’s when a Walmart security guard asked to speak with him.
“They told me I had passed a particular point where it was now considering shoplifting,” Carroll said. “I was never going to leave with those items.”
Carroll said the items in question were as follows: two boxes of Keurig coffee, a can of baked beans and “some CDs.” Police could not confirm.
The Roseville Police Department has placed Carroll on administrative leave until his case is cleared. Carroll’s trial has been set for Jan. 8 in Zanesville Municipal Court.

poneill@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com
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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.