Fairfax County Police Watch: Trumbull Cop Accused of Sex Assault of Police Explorers Member

State police have arrested a 20-year veteran of the Trumbull police department who is accused of sexual assaulting one member of the police department's explorer program and sharing inappropriate texts with another.

Trumbull police said William Ruscoe, 44, has been suspended from duty and there is an internal investigation to determine if he violated any department policies or regulations.

Ruscoe served as an advisor to the explorer program, which works with youth interested in possible law enforcement careers, for several years, according to a statement from Trumbull Police Chief Thomas Kiely.

The application for the arrest warrant says one victim is now 17 and he is accused of sharing inappropriate texts with her.

The other victim is now 18-year-old.

The investigation into Ruscoe started on Oct. 14, 2013, when a suspicious incident was reported at a high school in Tolland County.

The 17-year-old girl told police that she joined the police explorers program in 2011, when she was 14. Months later, her drill instructor, identified as Ruscoe, started sending inappropriate and flirty messages, the girl told police.

Then it escalated to Ruscoe asking the teen to send him photos of herself.

In all, the teen said she sent Ruscoe about 50 photos of herself, exposed and Ruscoe sent her inappropriate photos of himself.

During a cadet camp at the University of Hartford last year, the teen said she noticed Ruscoe paying attention to two Trumbull girls and told him that people were talking about him flirting with one of the teens in an effort to get him to stop flirting, police documents state.

After meeting with the teen, police searched her phone for the messages.

In January, police obtained a search warrant for Ruscoe's phone and met with him at the police station to retreive it.

Ruscoe handed over his phone but said he did not want to provide the password or provide a written statement, according to the warrant application.

Ruscoe's attorney also told police that his client did not want to be interviewed.

On Sunday, troopers met with the second victim, who told police that she was "very intimidated" because of Ruscoe's position and she did not want him to get in trouble.

She told investigators she joined the explorers program in December 2012 and Ruscoe started sending her inappropriate messages in 2013. when she was 17.

She told police that she did communicate with Ruscoe but only after he was very persistent.

In the texts, Ruscoe wrote that he loved the girl and the texts progressively became more graphic and sexual in nature, according to police paperwork.

She told police that Ruscoe begged the her to send him photos of her and she eventually did, according to police. She also provided police with information about three inappropriate incidents that occured in June.

Ruscoe took the teen to a beach in Stratford and gave her a silver bracelet with a heart-shaped charm that said "Made With Love," according to police.

On another night in June, Ruscoe picked her up early in the morning after a "band gig."

He was drunk, she told police, became aggressive in a sexual manner and kissed her, but she tried to push him away.

At the end of the month, Ruscoe took the teen to a Trumbull home he had moved out of.

Once they were inside, he placed a gun on the counter and and was looking at her "in a threatening way that made her very uncomfortable," the warrant says.

The girl told police that things became sexual and she kept telling him to stop. He also restrained her hands behind her back with handcuffs while in bed, police said.

The girl told police she recalled one conversation in which Ruscoe said that if he ever got caught, he would go to jail and that he would kill himself if he went to jail.

She said this was intimidating and she did not want anything to happen to him because of anything he did.

The girl told police that Ruscoe had asked the teen to change his name in her phone to "Jack" because she liked the movie Titanic and told her he could get in trouble because of her age.

Toward the end of January, Ruscoe reached out to the 18-year-old and told her that police had come to take his phone because "an older friend that was a girl he used to help out was going through a rough time and she dropped his name," court documents said.

Ruscoe told her he was nervous that police would contact her because her number was in his phone and advised her not to say anything because she is 18 and is not required, the teen told police.

Ruscoe was charged with second-degree sexual assault, third-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and tampering with a witness.

Police released a statement about Ruscoe's arrest.

"I am deeply troubled and concerned by the nature of the charges that have been presented. We will make every effort to ensure that the integrity of the department and its officers is preserved as this case is investigated, and that the case is handles in a fair and timely manner," a statement from Kiely says.

Ruscoe was arrested on Thursday and bond was set at $50,000.

He posted bond and is due back in court on March 5.

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.