Fairfax County Police Watch: Asbury cop to be suspended without pay; charge of computer crimes added

News conference scheduled by police chief, prosecutor for today

ASBURY PARK — The 16-year city police department veteran who was arrested Wednesday will be suspended without pay and is facing an additional computer crimes charge, police said Thursday.

Keith German, 45, a patrolman since 1998, was taken into custody at his home in Tinton Falls by Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office investigators and charged with official misconduct, Asbury Park Press learned Wednesday night.

Official misconduct is a second-degree crime, punishable by five to 10 years in prison. Second-degree crimes carry a presumption of jail time if convicted. Details about the charge were not made public.

Asbury Park Police Chief Mark Kinmon said the police department and Prosecutor’s Office will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. today on the case.

“There is a lot more to (the story),” Kinmon said.

German also is charged with “disclosing data,” according to Cynthia Scott, a spokeswoman for the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Department. She did not provide further details about the arrest, but confirmed German was released Wednesday night after posting 10 percent of a $50,000 bail.

The disclosing data charge is defined in the New Jersey criminal code as an act that releases information from a protected database without authorization.

Detective Capt. Marshawn Love confirmed Thursday that German “will be suspended without pay.”

Detective Daniel Kowsaluk, the Policeman’s Benevolent Association Local 6 representative, did not return the call for comment.

City and county law enforcement officials remained mum Thursday, declining to release any further information about German’s arrest.

Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni declined to comment on German’s arrest.

“When there is an announcement to be made, the press will be notified, but we don’t have any information,” Gramiccioni said.

German, who has served as a city youth basketball league coach, also declined comment. He referred questions to his Red Bank attorney Stanley Werse. Werse said German plans to enter a not guilty plea.

German’s annual base salary in 2012 as a city police officer was $90,300, according to the latest New Jersey pension records.

Mayor Myra Campbell said she didn’t know German was arrested until reading it in the Press. The mayor acknowledged that the arrest of a police officer would cast a bad light on a city already gripped by crime and gang activity. She declined to discuss the case further.

Deputy Mayor Sue Henderson said German’s arrest shows growth in a police department that historically has not investigated itself.

“This sends the message to everyone else that just because you are a police officer, that doesn’t mean you are above the law,” Henderson 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.