Fairfax County Police Watch: 06/10/13

U.S. District Court judge has released a Baltimore cop Ashley Roane caught in a drug dealing and tax-fraud investigation from federal custody until trial. Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher allowed the cop a pre-trial release with conditions. She faces charges of attempted possession with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, aggravated identity theft and identity theft.

A Muscle Shoals cop named Greg Scoggins was found guilty Tuesday of killing a deer on TVA property. Scoggins was charged with killing the deer while on duty in December and was fired from the Muscle Shoals Police Department. Scoggins was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and court costs.

A lawyer for a San Francisco police officer says his black client was the victim of racial profiling when he was arrested last week when three white San Francisco cops pulled over cop Lorezno Adamson they asked whether he was on probation and parole. Adamson said he replied by saying he should have instead been asked for his driver's license and registration. Adamson said he was choked, thrown to the ground and arrested after telling the trio that he was an officer and that he was armed.

Misconduct claims against NYPD soar 22% between 2011 and 2012: report

Claims against police were up 7% — from 8,941 in fiscal year 2011 to 9,570 in fiscal year 2012 — but a report released by Controller John Liu’s office said accusations against NYPD officers of improper conduct, false arrests and using excessive force rose 22%, while they were down an average of 19% for other city agencies.

Bal Theatre owner Dan Dillman has filed a federal lawsuit against Alameda County seeking more than $15 million in damages, alleging that he was falsely arrested and beaten last October by two, out-of-uniform Sheriff’s Department cops Michael D. Carroll and Terrence H. Montigue as the cops who “severely and mercilessly beat, punched and kicked (him) while he was on the ground in handcuffs.”

John. P. Wolfinbarger, an Oswego cop was in custody after a standoff in a plaza off Route 6 in Channahon New York. He was charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing a police officer and DUI alcohol. Wolfinbarger is an 11-year veteran of Oswego Police

Channahon police responded to a call from patrons at Chicago Pizza & Catering Company that a man was inside arguing with someone and that he had a gun.

Since 2006, the Minneapolis Police Department has paid out almost $14 million to the “alleged” victims of police misconduct and abuse. Last month, the department broke, settled a $3 million suit with the family of a mentally ill man who died after being forcibly restrained at the local YMCA. It was the largest payout in the city’s history to the family of a civilian alleged to have been harmed by the Minneapolis police. But there’s been no discipline. “Attorneys who have sued the Minneapolis police say the department is reluctant to discipline wayward officers,” reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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.