Fairfax County Police Watch: Salem officer charged with assaulting Maine man following chase

By JAMES A. KIMBLE

A Salem police officer was charged Wednesday with allegedly striking a 39-year-old Maine man in the head with a flashlight and stepping on his hands after he was apprehended during a police pursuit.

Joseph Freda, who joined the department about a year-and-a-half ago, is facing two counts of simple assault for his contact with Thomas Templeton, of York, Maine. State police charged Templeton with reckless driving and disobeying a police officer after a pursuit that ended in Salem shortly before 2:12 a.m. on Oct. 6.

Templeton is currently being held at Rockingham County jail.

Salem police said in a statement that they fully cooperated with the investigation and placed Freda on unpaid administrative leave after their own internal investigation into the matter. Freda is expected to have an administrative hearing regarding his job status next week.

“The Salem Police Department does not tolerate excessive use of force from its police officers,” Salem Deputy Police Chief Shawn Patten said in the statement. “The Salem Police Department has long-standing policies and procedures in place providing guidance for our officers.”

Patten said the department’s 62 full-time officers receive mandatory, comprehensive training, including arrest procedures and acceptable use of force. That training happens on an ongoing basis, the department said.

Freda’s arrest comes just days after a YouTube video showed a Seabrook police officer slamming a suspect’s face into a wall, which set off a criminal investigation into alleged police brutality in the 2009 incident. (See related story, Page A5.) In Salem, the investigation into Freda began Oct. 22 when the New Hampshire State Police notified the state Attorney General’s Office about the injuries Templeton suffered during his arrest. Templeton was sitting on the ground in handcuffs when he was allegedly struck and had his hands stepped on, according to state investigators.

Freda’s lawyer, Donald Blaszka, said late Wednesday that his client plans to enter a not-guilty plea in 10th Circuit Court in Salem within the next few days. Blaszka said he has yet to receive police reports and other materials collected from the investigation.

“Once we receive that information, we will review it thoroughly and prepare my client’s defense,” Blaszka said.

Associate Attorney General Jane Young said her office is now looking into other incidents involving Freda.

A 21-year-old man was sentenced to a year in jail for assault last May for attempting to take Freda’s gun and breaking his hand while the two struggled during a November 2012 arrest. Freda struck the man in the face during the scuffle while trying to keep his gun from being taken.

“When gathering the facts, reviewing a past case like that would fall under the scope of that investigation,” Young said.

Freda also drew at least one complaint while on duty as a police officer in Brookline prior to accepting a job in Salem, according to court records. Resident Sharon Ryherd, who was arrested in June 2009, complained about Freda’s conduct when she was arrested for disobeying a police officer, resisting arrest and reckless operation. The charges were later dropped to non-criminal violations and Ryherd paid fines, court records say.

Freda is scheduled for his arraignment on Feb. 24 in 10th Circuit Court in Salem

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.