Fairfax County Police Watch: Mountlake Terrace police officer charged with DUI

by HEATHER GRAF

SEATTLE -- A commander who oversees the patrol division of the Mountlake Terrace Police Department is now on administrative leave, after being arrested and charged with driving under the influence.

Donald Duncan is an 18-year veteran of the police force.

According to court documents, a Washington State Patrol officer working in Snohomish County witnessed Duncan cross the centerline of traffic by approximately three tire widths. Court documents also say he was driving at night without his headlights on and ran a red light as he was being pulled over.

Court documents say that as soon as the trooper pulled over the vehicle, Duncan immediately told him he had worked for the Mountlake Terrace Police Department for 18 years. The trooper wrote that Duncan had "bloodshot and watery eyes" and smelled like alcohol.

Duncan allegedly begged the trooper not to arrest him.

Mountlake Terrace Police confirm to KING 5 that Duncan was placed on administrative leave in February, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Court documents say Duncan has pled not guilty to the charges.

KING 5 caught up with Duncan at his home in Lake Stevens. He could not say much, because it is a pending case, but felt it was important for people to know his blood alcohol level was below the legal limit.

Court documents confirm his two breath samples registered at .055 and .058. Both results are below the legal limit of .08.

In the WSP report, the investigating trooper said the breathalyzer test wasn't administered until about two hours after he pulled Duncan over. Based on the rate at which alcohol is metabolized by the body, the trooper wrote in his report that he stood by his decision to arrest Duncan.

Duncan told KING 5 there were some discrepancies in the investigative report. He also says he would never use his position as a law enforcement officer to get special treatment during a traffic stop.

He is hopeful his name will eventually be cleared.

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.