Fairfax County Police Watch: Settlement reached in alleged police brutality case

By Allison Sampite-Montecalvo

CHULA VISTA — The city of Chula Vista has agreed to pay $125,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a Navy surgeon who said a city police officer beat him as he was leaving a concert.

Dr. Eric Harris, chief spinal surgeon at Naval Medical Center San Diego, said Officer Fred Krafft beat him Oct. 16, 2008, following a Jimmy Buffett performance at what was then called the Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre.

“The city’s decision to settle the case was a business decision based on the city’s interest in managing the significant costs and inherent risks in litigation,” city officials said in a statement released Friday.

The parties agreed to the settlement Dec. 24 and have jointly filed in court for dismissal of the case.

The Harris family filed the suit in federal court in October 2009, stating that as concertgoers were leaving a traffic-jammed parking lot Harris got out of his car to help create a space to merge.

Harris’ wife, May, said in the lawsuit that Krafft yelled at Harris to get back into his SUV. Harris began walking back to his car but muttered a curse word under his breath.

The lawsuit alleges Krafft then came up behind Harris and slammed his face into the window of his SUV several times while his children watched from the back seat.

Harris was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public and resisting arrest. His attorney, Mary Frances Prevost, said the District Attorney's Office did not file charges against Harris.

Weeks after the incident, Harris was diagnosed with depression and severe post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident, according to the lawsuit. He was later deployed to Afghanistan.

In addition, Prevost has said Harris was denied a promotion, lost $200,000 in outside work because of his injuries and would incur at least $60,000 in medical bills.

A spokesman for the Police Department said Krafft’s actions were “appropriate and justified.”

Prevost said four witnesses came forward to corroborate Harris' story, saying Harris did nothing to cause Krafft to attack him.

City officials said the incident was caused “by the plaintiff’s own negligence, fault, reckless or unlawful conduct,” according to court documents.

The case had been set to go to trial last year.

Capt. Gary Ficacci said Krafft remains on the police force. Krafft has been a Chula Vista officer for 11 years.

“We are still confident that our officer at all times acted in an appropriate manner,” Ficacci said.

Court documents show that in 2009, the city of Chula Vista and the Chula Vista Police Department settled a lawsuit filed by Felix Espino, who alleged excessive use of force by Krafft and other officers before and after they arrested him. The case was settled for $85,000.

Krafft was not placed on leave following the incident involving Harris.

“We thoroughly investigate any and all allegations of misconduct of any employees and like many cases where there’s an allegation of wrongdoing in the department we examined what officer Krafft did,” Ficacci said.

In 2008, Prevost sued the city in federal court on behalf of Christian Morales, a former Otay Ranch High School student who said Chula Vista police beat him and knocked him unconscious in his driveway after mistaking him for a thief.

The city paid $400,000 to settle that lawsuit.

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.