Fairfax County Police Watch: Mom: Suspended Piqua officer 'punched my kid'

PIQUA —

Piqua Police Officer Brett Marrs has been suspended for 28 days because of actions he took in April 2013 while not on duty.
Wednesday night the mother of the juvenile girl who was hurt because of those actions, Frankie "Shelly" Atkinson, spoke to News Center 7's Layron Livingston.
The punishment was given to Marrs on Friday, Jan. 10, after an internal investigation concluded he acted in a manner unbecoming a police officer.

Late on the night of April 29, 2013, Marrs tackled and injured a juvenile female who was at his home with other juveniles to toilet-paper and vandalize the home.
During a Dec. 7 pre-disciplinary hearing, no evidence was presented to overturn the allegations. Marrs admitted to the violations.
The suspension began Monday and Marrs was ordered to surrender his gun and badge. He is not allowed to act as a police officer during his suspension, according to the Piqua Police Department.
The girl who was tackled suffered a shattered, dislocated ankle and underwent surgery in which eight pins and a plate were implanted, according to her mother, Frankie "Shelly" Atkinson.
Atkinson has filed a civil lawsuit against Marrs. A grand jury considered evidence in the case but chose not to indict Marrs for any criminal offense.
Atkinson said her daughter was there with six other people, including her other daughter, to toilet-paper the home because they were mad at Marrs' stepdaughter.
Atkinson doesn't give any excuses for their behavior. Her daughters were charged in juvenile court and disciplined at home.
Atkinson recounted the events as told to her by her daughter.
Atkinson said the teens had streamed toilet paper around the home and left syrup on the front door and were returning to their car.
"Right about that time. she said she felt a hand on her shoulder. Somebody said 'Gotchya!' and she went down to the ground. He punched her in the side." Atkinson said.
Atkinson said her daughter didn't know who it was until getting back up and making eye-contact with Marrs.
"She got away and ran a little bit further to where he, like a football tackle, tackled her to the ground," she said.
Though he was not on duty, Atkinson said Marrs was given special treatment because he's a police officer.
"From the beginning, the police department told me he needed to be treated like a civilian because he was off-duty," she said. "As a civilian, he would have went to jail that night. If this happened at my house and my husband tackled a girl and punched her, he would have went to jail that night."
Atkinson said the police department wasn't listening to her complaints until she got an attorney.
"I never wanted anybody to lose their job," she said. "My kids made a mistake that night too. But I think he should be held accountable for what he did ... He went too far. He punched my kid."
Atkinson said her home has been "toilet-papered" three times since since the incident.
News Center 7 reached out for comment from Officer Marrs, but he refused comment. His wife, Alice Marrs, did speak with News Center 7's Layron Livingston.
"I think that it is horrible that we live in a community where officers who risk their lives protecting other people aren't allowed to protect their own family," Alice said.

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.