Fairfax County Police Watch: Newark, feds near deal to monitor city's police force

NEWARK, N.J. – The city could soon become the latest in the country to have its police department fall under the oversight of a federally appointed monitor.

A spokeswoman for Newark, the state's largest city, said Monday that officials were in discussions with the Department of Justice, which initiated an investigation into its police department nearly three years ago after allegations that residents' complaints about excessive force and unlawful arrest were routinely mishandled.

"A monitor is likely but has not been definitively decided," Esmerelda Diaz Cameron, spokeswoman for Mayor Luis Quintana, said in an email. "The City of Newark has been working cooperatively with the Department of Justice in connection with its review of (Newark Police Department) procedures. The City and the Department of Justice are working to ensure that best practices are followed within the Newark Police Department."

If a monitor is appointed, Newark would join other cities including Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Seattle in being subjected to federal oversight. The Star-Ledger first reported the pending appointment of a monitor for Newark.

The Department of Justice's investigation in Newark, announced in May 2011, came months after New Jersey's American Civil Liberties Union chapter filed a complaint alleging rampant misconduct and lax internal oversight in the police department.

Among the ACLU's claims in the filing were that out of more than 200 complaints filed with the police department in 2008 and 2009 only one, alleging an improper search, was upheld. The city paid nearly $5 million over a 2 1/2-year period to settle lawsuits brought against the police department by residents or employees, the ACLU said.

ACLU New Jersey's executive director, Udi Ofer, said Monday that he welcomed the possibility of a monitor being appointed. But he said that steps such as creating a civilian review board and an inspector general's office must be taken to ensure the reforms are long-lasting.

"Oversight has to outlast any one federal monitor," he said. "The reforms must be permanent."

Then-Mayor Cory Booker announced last March a plan to create a civilian review board to monitor police, but he stepped down to successfully campaign for a U.S. Senate seat last year, and no board has been created.

Police Director Samuel DeMaio and Newark Superior Officers Association president John Chrystal didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Monday. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment

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.