Fairfax County Police Watch: Morrogh finds another Fairfax County cop innocent in another shooting

Fairfax County officer won’t be charged in fatal shooting of homeless man at shelter

By Justin Jouvenal, Published: January 21 E-mail the writer

Prosecutors will not file charges against a Fairfax County police officer who fatally shot a homeless man during an altercation at a shelter near Fort Belvoir in October, police announced Tuesday.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh cleared Officer Mohammed Oluwa, an 11-year veteran assigned to the Mount Vernon Police District, of any wrongdoing in the killing of 28-year-old James Bryant. The officer, who has been assigned administrative tasks since the shooting, will return to patrol duties, police said.

The incident began about 6 p.m. Oct. 30 when officers responded to a report of a fight at the Eleanor U. Kennedy Shelter, police said. A witness said Bryant, a resident of the shelter, was “fighting everyone.”

Linda Kay Washington, who lives at the shelter, said Bryant hit a woman in the back and hit others who tried to stop him. When the officers arrived, Bryant assaulted one and wrestled his baton away, police said. Bryant then began hitting the other officer, Oluwa, with the baton.

The officers tried to stop Bryant using nonlethal tactics, but he could not be stopped, police said. Oluwa fired on Bryant to stop the assault, and the officers aided the man until a rescue crew arrived.

“The man was shot in the chest, and the police were trying to stop his bleeding, but he was still fighting them,” Washington said.

Bryant died at a hospital. Three other people injured in the incident were taken to the hospital, and a fourth person was treated on the scene. Police have not given any indication of what sparked the fight.

Surveillance footage from a nearby convenience store showed Bryant smashing a 2-liter bottle of soda and swiping items off a counter earlier that day.

The Rev. Keary Kincannon, of Rising Hope United Methodist Mission Church in Alexandria, said Bryant was a regular at the church’s soup kitchen. He described him as quiet, respectful and helpful around the kitchen.

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.