Fairfax County Police Watch: Eunice Police Investigating An Old Arrest

Steven Albritton

The Eunice Police Department is reviewing an old arrest after thousands of views on YouTube. Dashcam video shot back in February shows three officers making an arrest after a traffic stop. The suspect in the video is Archillus Hebert and family members are saying those officers crossed the line.

"I was sick. It made me sick to the stomach to see that they actually did that to him," Mary Hebert said. She is the mother of Archillus and first saw the video Wednesday morning. In fact, the whole family got word of it around the same time.

"I woke up and actually returned one of the phone calls, and they were like, did you check Facebook? Did you check on Youtube? Your brothers video is on there and you need to see it," Archillus Hebert's sister Omesha Williams said.

The video shows Eunice Police using force to bring Hebert to the ground. Police say he was swerving before being pulled over and smelled of alcohol. They also say he was taken to the ground because he appeared to put something in his mouth. Later in the video, it shows one officer placing his hands on Hebert after he was handcuffed.

"He told us a little bit of what happened, but we never thought it was this bad. It's just sad to say that you know that the people we're supposed to call on for help is the ones that's actually committing the crimes," Williams said.

Hebert pleaded guilty in May to all charges from the incident, including resisting arrest. The family hopes this video will start a movement for change within the department.

"Something got to come from this. We're not going to just let it die out from this. We're going to do whatever we have to do to make sure justice is served," Mary Hebert said.

Archillus Hebert is currently in the Pine Prairie Jail. He's facing several drug related charges as well as resisting an officer and simple escape from an incident in September.

Eunice Police Chief Ronald Dies says he will be contacting the FBI to investigate the use of force in the video. He will also be contacting State Police to investigate how the dash cam video became public. Chief Dies says he will be transparent with the investigation and if someone is found in the wrong, they will be held accountable for their actions.

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.