Fairfax County Police Watch: Former bank executive's trial against LAPD in beating case begins

By Richard WintonThis post has been updated. See note below for details.

A judge will allow a recording of a former Hollywood and banking executive acknowledging he used bath salts to be used only for impeachment purposes in his civil rights trial against Los Angeles police for beating him during an arrest.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner made the decision Tuesday as the civil rights and excessive force case against the LAPD began Tuesday for Brian Mulligan, a former Universal and Deutsche Bank executive.

The decision means Mulligan's statements to Glendale police two days before the LAPD arrest could be used only if he contradicts them in court.

The judge also decided the eight-person jury will not hear allegations that one of the officers Mulligan says beat him, James Nichols, was under investigation for sex acts with women informants unless they first find excessive force was used.

At the time of the alleged beating incident, Nichols was under investigation for misconduct in the LAPD's Hollywood Division.

Events unfolded in the May 2012 beating when officers responded to reports of a man trying to get into locked cars. They came upon Mulligan, who was on his way to an Eagle Rock marijuana dispensary, in the street and stopped him.

They found in his car what appeared to be bath salts, a synthetic substance not illegal to possess but that can cause powerful reactions similar to cocaine when ingested, according to a recounting of events by the Police Commission, which oversees the LAPD.

Although officers noticed he was “sweating profusely and appeared unsteady,” they determined Mulligan was not drunk or under the influence of illegal drugs.

Mulligan asked the officers to take him to a motel, according to accounts given by the officers and a police supervisor who was at the scene. They agreed, dropping him off at one nearby.

About an hour later, the same officers saw Mulligan “screaming and dragging a metal trash can in the street,” police reports show. Mulligan ran away from the officers, according to the LAPD's official account of the incident.

The officers chased Mulligan and found him snarling, thrashing and swiping at them as if he believed his hands were claws. They claimed Mulligan charged at them. The officers said they pushed him to the ground and kicked and struck him in the torso with a baton, according to police records.

Mulligan's nose was broken in several places and his shoulder blade fractured. After an internal investigation, the Police Commission found the officers' use of force was justified.

Mulligan had a very different account of the encounter. Through an attorney, he claimed the officers took him to the motel against his will and attacked him when he fled, beating him in the face and on the head and deliberately breaking his shoulder blade.

He accused the officers of fabricating their arrest report.

In announcing plans to seek millions in damages against the LAPD, Mulligan denied having ever used bath salts and accused the officers of lying about the arrest.

In response, the Los Angeles police union released a recording an officer in nearby Glendale made when Mulligan had struck up a conversation with him a few days before his arrest.

Sounding agitated and paranoid, Mulligan admitted to the officer to using a potent type of bath salts.

Klausner decided Tuesday that if jurors determine the city was at fault in the excessive-use portion of the trial -- setting off a second phase on negligent supervision -- the evidence against Nichols can be heard.

A woman who accused Nichols and another Los Angeles police officer of threatening her with jail unless she had sex with them will be paid $575,000 to settle her lawsuit against the city.

The Los Angeles City Council last week unanimously approved the payout to the woman, one of four to accuse Nichols and another officer of coercing them into having sex with them, according to court documents.

Nichols, who is on paid leave, denies any wrongdoing. His attorney, Robert Rico, said the woman and the other accusers "had no credibility."

[Updated at 8:15 p.m. PST, Jan. 21: An earlier version of this post omitted part of the sequence of events that led to the L.A. police union releasing a recording of Mulligan acknowledging to Glendale police that he used bath salts.]

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.