Fairfax County Police Watch: San Diego Police Department announces arrest of Officer Christopher Hays

Faces false imprisonment, sexual battery charges

SAN DIEGO - The San Diego Police Department on Sunday announced the arrest of Officer Christopher Hays on charges of false imprisonment and sexual battery.

Hays, 30, turned himself in about 1:30 p.m. at a sheriff's substation on Rancho Bernardo Road, per an agreement between the District Attorney's Office, the San Diego Police Department and his attorney, police officials said.

Hays was booked into jail on suspicion of two counts of felony false imprisonment and three misdemeanor sexual battery counts filed in connection with four alleged victims, all women in their late 20s to late 30s, according to San Diego police officials and jail records.

10News learned Hays bailed out of jail at about 3:40 p.m. Sunday. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, according to jail records. Hays is currently on unpaid leave.

If convicted, Hays would face 7 1/2 years behind bars, San Diego police Lt. Kevin Mayer said.

If the allegations were proven to be true, "this would be a termination case," said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne

Last Thursday, Team 10 broke the story about accusations of sexual misconduct against four women by Hays.

Four alleged victims told investigators that Hays, assigned to the Mid-City Division, improperly touched them through their clothing, with no "skin-to-skin contact," Lansdowne said last week.

Two other cases remained under investigation -- one which involved sexual contact, Lansdowne said.

"He could be looking at more charges with the fifth and sixth victim," Lansdowne said.

The most recently reported case was being handled with the District Attorney's Office as lead, he said.

A fifth alleged victim stepped forward with an accusation that Hays pressured her to perform a sex act with him.

"What she's accusing him of is oral sex to get out of a ticket," attorney Dan Gilleon told 10News on Saturday. "That's what happened. She actually gave him oral sex back in October of 2012."

Lansdowne noted that the investigation into the allegations was thorough from when the first accuser stepped forward in late December. Investigators also reviewed Hays' cases over the past four years.

However, many of the cases showed contact but no name, Lansdowne said.

Lansdowne said four of the six cases have been filed as of Sunday. He said all of the six cases were spread out over about a year's time.

All the cases were unreported until this past week and the last one was reported to an attorney, he said.

It was the second time in just under three years that a member of the San Diego Police Department has been accused of sexual misconduct with female detainees.

In 2012, ex-Officer Anthony Arevalos was sentenced to almost nine years in prison for demanding sexual favors from women he pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving in the Gaslamp Quarter.

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.