Fairfax County Police Watch: Dash cam furthers controversy over firing of Dallas cop

A newly released dash-cam has stirred debate over whether the December shooting of an unarmed man was justified

DALLAS — A newly released dash-cam video has stirred debate over whether the December shooting of an unarmed man by a Dallas police officer was justified.
Senior Cpl. Amy Wilburn was fired after wounding a 19-year-old carjacking suspect on Dec. 9. Wilburn's attorney has said the ex-officer feared for her life when she shot Kelvion Walker, wounding him. But a witness told investigators the suspect had his hands raised at the time. Wilburn was the second Dallas officer dismissed since October in shootings superiors have deemed unjustified.
The video was posted Tuesday on the Dallas Police Department's official YouTube page. In it, a carjacking suspect is seen running out of the stolen car after it pulled into an apartment complex. Wilburn runs up to the vehicle as it continues to roll forward. As she opens the driver-side door, she quickly pulls out her gun and fires once. Wilburn then holsters her gun and leans into the car.
Walker cannot be seen, but police say Wilburn shot him. Police also say Wilburn subsequently dropped her gun in the car.
In the video, another officer can be seen handing the gun back to Wilburn, by then had walked over to the passenger side of the car. After leaning into the car for less than 30 seconds, Wilburn starts pacing around, with her hands on top of her head.
Wilburn's attorney, Robert Rogers, has said the ex-officer shot Walker because she believed he was reaching for a weapon.
Walker, who survived, is suing the department. His attorney, Geoff Henley, said in a statement the video vindicated Walker and that Wilburn made "rash, reckless and dangerous decisions."
Dallas Police Association president Ron Pinkston told The Dallas Morning News that officers upset with Wilburn's firing were even more infuriated after seeing the video.
"There's a lot of these go-getters that want to go out and put bad guys in jail and they aren't doing it right now because of the possibility that they might have to use deadly force and get fired," Pinkston said.
Retired Dallas police homicide detective Randy Loboda, who has investigated dozens of officer-involved shootings, told the newspaper Wilburn could have perceived any sudden movement with Walker's hands as him "going for a gun."
But Cletus Judge, president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas, has backed Police Chief David Brown's decision to fire Wilburn, writing in a recent letter to members that what he saw "in the video was a total disregard for the policies and procedures set in place to handle that situation."
Harvey Hedden, executive director of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, said Wilburn shouldn't have rushed the moving car because she risked being ambushed.
After the shooting, police officials announced a restructuring of some deadly force training. Brown said officers will now go through some realistic live simulation training every few months, rather than once every two years.

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.