Fairfax County Police Watch: Haymarket police chief re-suspended, council overrides mayor’s veto

By Tom Jackman

Haymarket Deputy Police Chief Gregory A. Breeden, suspended along with his police chief for 60 days without pay. Was previously suspended for 15 days, also with Chief James E. Roop. (Town of Haymarket)

If you’re keeping score at home, Haymarket Police Chief James E. Roop is back OFF the job, along with his deputy chief, Gregory A. Breeden, and Officer Jacob T. Davis, after all three were suspended last Monday night, then un-suspended on Thursday afternoon by Mayor David Leake. On Friday night, the town council overrode the mayor’s veto and re-suspended Roop, Breeden and Davis. So once again, the town of about 1,900 residents is left with three officers to stem the tide of crime in western Prince William County, at least for the next 60 days.

We still don’t know what exactly these three lawmen did to earn their suspensions, though Roop and Davis were ordered to undergo counseling for sexual harassment. In 2005, Roop and Breeden were investigated by an independent lawyer who recommended they be fired for sexual harassment. The town council gave them 15 days without pay.

This time, the council launched its own investigation in mid-December, and decided to suspend Roop, Davis and Breeden for 60 days in a special meeting on Monday night. Leake, as mayor, did not get a vote in that, and he felt that the whole matter should have been investigated independently, and that the penalties for Breeden and Davis were too harsh. On Thursday, as the Haymarket town charter allows, he vetoed all three suspensions.

The town charter also allows the council to override a mayoral veto with a two-third vote, or four of the six. So after the three officers were reinstated Thursday afternoon, the council met Friday night in another special meeting. In the video of the meeting, Leake asked why the officers didn’t get their due process, as stated in the police general orders. Vice Mayor Jay Tobias said town attorney Martin Crim advised that the charter trumps the police department’s orders, and until the council updates the charter, “in which we’d probably look to strike your ability to veto things out of personal vendettas,” Tobias said, the charter rules.

The votes to re-suspend the three officers were held without discussion among the council members, but a heckler sitting out of camera range chimed in with her own analysis, such as, “You’re elected by us to represent the town, not your own personal agendas,” and “I can’t wait until we all get sued and all our houses are taken because you guys are idiots.”

Roop was suspended unanimously, Breeden by a 5-1 vote and Davis by a 4-2 vote. Yet another special meeting is scheduled for Tuesday night, where more of the tangled rivalries and animosities that animate Haymarket will likely be aired. Whether anyone will say why the publicly elected board chose to suspend half of its taxpayer-funded police department for two months is anyone’s guess.

UPDATE, Monday 11 a.m.: Leake issued this comment on the council’s actions: “I am disturbed and disappointed by the council’s decision not to reconsider and move forward with an independent and qualified investigation. No one on council has the qualifications, training or experience to conduct an investigation and known relationships make it even more complicated. We owe it to our residents, whom we were elected to serve, to make sure we do all we can and to make sure that warranted consequences are duly imparted when and where they are deserved. I also disagree with council and believe our residents have a right to know what is going on, minus specific details.”

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.