Fairfax County Police Watch: Former East Haven cop Dennis Spaulding takes to Facebook to say he is not a racist: posts statement he read in court

By Evan Lips, New Haven Register

East haven A day after he was sentenced to serve five years in federal prison for crimes that included civil rights abuses against Latino immigrants, convicted ex-police Officer Dennis Spaulding Friday cracked a wall of media silence that has stood ever since his January 2012 arrest.

He had taken to Facebook Thursday to post the statement he read aloud in court moments before U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Thompson’s sentencing. He disputed the claims of racism government prosecutors heaped upon him for the entirety of the monthlong trial.

“I am not a racist,” his statement included, along with stories of working restaurant jobs alongside undocumented immigrants and the friendships he made.

Reached Friday night, he talked about why he chose to post it.

“I felt like my side of the story was never told and I wanted people to know there are two sides to every story,” he said. “It was the crimes that were targeted, not the color of someone’s skin.”

Spaulding noted he couldn’t add more, over concerns anything public would adversely affect the sentencing appeal his attorney, Frank J. Riccio, was filing.

Spaulding never spoke during the monthlong trial that ended with his Oct. 21 conviction. He never elected to take the witness stand to counter claims from his accusers, instead opting to execute his Fifth Amendment right to silence.

Prosecutors appeared to have planned in advance to combat any attempts Spaulding may have tried to make on the day of his sentencing to dispute racism claims. The government’s sentencing memorandum, filed a week before, states bluntly that “simply saying does not make it so,” before labeling Spaulding as a “corrupt, abusive, racist and obstructionist police officer who has no regard for the civil rights of his victims.”

What follows below is Spaulding’s statement in its entirety, as posted on his Facebook profile page:

Dear Honorable Judge Alvin W. Thompson:

My Name is Dennis Spaulding:

During the course of this trial, I have been portrayed as a bully and a racist. I would like to use this opportunity to give the court, in my own words, a more complete picture of who I really am and a deeper understanding of my actions.

Since the time I was 16 years old, I have worked side-by-side with undocumented immigrates in the restaurant business. They have shared their stories and their struggles to enter this country, most times coming through the desert with little food or water. They have shared their struggle to continue to live in the shadows. As I told Father Manship numerous times, I applaud his efforts to push for immigration reform. The undocumented population, which I have met, truly are hardworking people who struggle every day for the betterment of their lives and the lives of their families. I hope the federal government will soon address these issues.

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.