Fairfax County Police Watch: IMPD officer accused of official misconduct, faces 13 criminal charges

by Kendall Downing

INDIANAPOLIS - An Indianapolis Metropolitan police officer faces 13 charges related to a criminal investigation.

IMPD officer Cory Owensby is suspended without pay, and Chief Rick Hite said Thursday afternoon he’s pushing for termination. A special grand jury indicted the officer on 13 counts, including official misconduct, criminal conversion, and false informing.

Prosecutors believe Owensby mishandled evidence and even withheld it from IMPD’s property room.

Owensby is the son of Fraternal Order of Police Local 86 President Bill Owensby.

The indictments detail alleged criminal action through 2012 and 2013.

The IMPD Civilian Police Merit Board will decide Owensby’s fate as an officer of the law.

“In keeping on policy based on these type charges, it’s a view toward termination,” said Chief Rick Hite.

The thirteen counts include eight misdemeanors and five felonies after an investigation showed Owensby failed to put evidence in IMPD’s property room.

A steel axe, marijuana, a marijuana pipe/rolling papers, and pills are among the evidentiary items alleged to have been taken. The indictments also state Owensby gave false information in some cases.

“We are looking at what the impact has been, but it wasn’t a widespread kind of case where we can show chapter and verse there were multiple cases impacted. And at this point, we’re still looking into that,” said Hite.

Hite said IMPD is still investigating how many cases may be affected.

“It certainly raises concerns for any type of investigation that may be pending,” said Marla Thomas, a criminal defense attorney.

Thomas said it’s almost a certainty lawyers in town will be checking their clients’ cases to see if Owensby is listed as an investigating officer. Thomas said the indictments will turn up the heat on any matter he’s handled.

“We have a lot of very good officers in the city, even I will say that as a criminal defense attorney. However, the bad ones tend to get the press and be the ones that cause us to have concerns,” she said.

Chief Hite said IMPD’s internal affairs investigation first caught the questionable behavior. He also says there are changes underway in the way records are managed.

Owensby was placed on suspension without pay pending a termination hearing before the IMPD Civilian Police Merit Board.

Owensby’s attorney John Kautzman said as of Thursday night

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.