Fairfax County Police Watch: 07/16/13

Clarksburg Police Officials Resign, Avoid Federal Prosecution

U.S. Attorney’s Office July 09, 2013 • Northern District of West Virginia (304) 234-0100

CLARKSBURG, WV—The chief of the Clarksburg Police Department and one of his lieutenants have resigned in order to avoid being prosecuted for federal criminal charges.

United States Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld, II announced today that former Chief Marshall Goff and former Lieutenant Tim Smith have quit the Clarksburg Police Department and thus will avoid being charged with civil rights violations and for making false statements to federal agents. The actions of Goff and Smith occurred after officers from their department responded to a report of an alleged domestic battery in Clarksburg in April 2013 involving a city councilman. Goff and Smith became involved in the response, and the actions that they took led to a separate investigation into their handling of the case.

The resignations of Goff and Smith are effective immediately, and both men are barred from ever seeking or accepting employment as police officers again. Both men have also agreed to be cooperative and truthful in the ongoing investigation into the handling of the response to the alleged domestic battery.

A charge has been filed in the underlying domestic battery case, and that matter is being handled in state court by a special prosecuting attorney.

The case involving Goff and Smith was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the West Virginia State Police, BCI, both of which are members of the West Virginia Public Corruption Task Force. If the public has any information regarding this matter or other similar matters they ma ycall the public corruption hotline at 1-855-WVA-FEDS(1-855-982-3337) or send an e-mail to wvafeds@usdoj.gov.

Arbiter rules cop firing justified

A Warren police officer with a history of domestic violence complaints and who once accidentally shot a fellow police officer will not get his job back after being fired in December, an arbiter ruled Thursday.

Arbitrator Mark I. Luried ruled Thursday that Jeffrey Miller, a 17-year police veteran, was justly fired Dec. 5 after he skipped a probation violation hearing on a reckless operation conviction that stemmed from a drunken driving arrest and was jailed for five days.

Miller was charged with drunken driving following a Sept. 22, 2011 accident in which he refused a breath test and initially lied about drinking. Miller initially denied drinking to Ohio State Highway Patrol Troopers but then supplied troopers with a written statement he drank two 24-ounce beers before driving.

He told then-Police Chief Tim Bowers he “shouldn’t have been driving” during a pre-disciplinary hearing. He violated probation and never showed up to court. He also never attended mandatory treatment programs ordered by Mahoning County Boardman Area Court Judge Joseph Houser.

Miller was never disciplined for the drunken driving charge and ensuing reckless operation conviction, the arbiter’s ruling says. He also was never officially reprimanded for multiple domestic violence arrests at his Weathersfield Township home in 2010 and 2011, according to the arbiter’s report.

In one instance, the report said, Miller threatened to kill himself and officers found pistols, empty beer cans and bottles and several prescription medication bottles.

None of the charges were ever prosecuted and he was never disciplined.

Miller, in 2002, accidentally shot fellow police officer Benny Harrell twice in the leg when the two responded to a burglary report. A police internal investigation revealed he was not criminally negligent.

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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.