Fairfax County Police Watch: Charges dropped in fatal crash in wake of cop's arrest

Claire Galofaro

Charges against a high school teacher accused of killing a woman while driving drunk were dismissed this week — a month after a police officer was indicted and declared he would no longer help prosecute the dozens of suspected drunken drivers he arrested.

Christopher Purcell, a longtime Iroquois High School teacher, was arrested in August 2012 by Louisville Metro Police Officer Christopher Thurman.

Thurman, 37, specialized in DUI enforcement but was indicted last month on accusations that he bilked taxpayers for more than $10,000 in phony overtime pay. He is charged with official misconduct and theft by deception, facing the possibility of a decade in prison.

His attorney told the county attorney and the commonwealth's attorney that Thurman will assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to testify in more than 100 pending criminal cases he investigated. Most are misdemeanors, prosecuted by the county attorney. But several, including the case against Purcell, include felony murder and manslaughter charges.

The drunken driving and manslaughter charges against Purcell relied on Thurman's word, said Leland Hulbert, a spokesman for the commonwealth attorney's office. Purcell's blood-alcohol content level wasn't far above the legal line, and the case hinged on Thurman's testimony about how the suspect performed on field-sobriety tests.

Prosecutors decided to dismiss the charges earlier this week in what Hulbert said was a frustrating decision for prosecutors and the family of the woman killed.

"There's not a lot we can tell the victim's family," he said. "They feel like the system cheated them, the system failed them. And there's not a lot of comfort we can give them."

Purcell was allegedly driving drunk in August 2012, when he crashed into a motorcycle near Strathmoor Boulevard and Bardstown Road.

Tracey Blevins, 31, died at the scene.

Thurman is accused of stealing more than $10,000 he did not earn between January 2011 and September 2013. He had pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors are evaluating his other cases to determine whether they can pursue them without his cooperation.

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.