• By Tom Jackman
John B. Geer, 46, was shot and
killed by a Fairfax County police officer in August 2013 while standing unarmed
in the doorway of his Springfield townhouse. (Jeff Stewart)
The clock keeps ticking, and
that’s about the only sound emanating from the investigation into the death of
John Geer. Geer, 46, was unarmed when he was shot to death by a Fairfax County
police officer on Aug. 29. It has now been seven months and there is still no
explanation from the Fairfax police, prosecutors or federal investigators about
how and why this happened, and whether or not it was legally justifiable.
Geer was standing in the
doorway of his home in Springfield, speaking to an officer who had his service
weapon drawn. Geer’s girlfriend and two daughters had fled the home. Geer was
distraught, had thrown his girlfriend’s clothes out of the house and had been
drinking, witnesses have told The Post, and there was a gun in his townhouse on
Pebble Brook Court. But he did not have the gun on him, a fact which was
clearly visible as he stood with his hands high on a door frame, dressed in
shorts. As Geer stood speaking to the still unnamed officer, the officer fired
one shot into Geer’s chest, witnesses told The Post. Geer staggered back into
the house and closed the door. Police waited another hour before going in,
where they found Geer dead.
The unanswered questions are
the same as they were on Aug. 29, as is the silence from Official Fairfax. Why
did the police create a “barricade situation” with one man alone in a
townhouse? Why did the officer shoot? And why did the police take so long to
render aid to a man they knew had been shot in the chest at close range? We can
speculate as to the answers, but the taxpayer-funded Fairfax County police and
prosecutor absolutely owe clear, definitive answers to the public and to Geer’s
family, and it is utterly baffling that this has turned into the most drawn-out
police shooting case in Fairfax County history.
Also waiting for an answer is
the still-unnamed officer. He has been on desk duty for seven months. Maybe he
was perfectly justified in his actions. He also deserves an answer, one way or
the other. Once a ruling is issued on criminal charges, the police internal
investigation will begin, drawing out his process even further.
In February, at the five-month
mark of the investigation, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said he was passing the case to the U.S.
attorney’s office in Alexandria, because of
a possible conflict of interest. He would not specify the conflict, and
said he had not intentionally delayed the case for five months. Of the three
previous most notorious police shootings in Fairfax, Morrogh and his
predecessor Robert Horan took no more than two-and-a-half months to rule on the
criminal liability of a shooting. Each time, they found none.
Fairfax County Police Chief
Edwin Roessler said in February that he had been in touch with the family and
promised accountability. Both he and Morrogh declined to comment Tuesday as the
case passed the seven-month mark, as did acting U.S. Attorney Dana Boente in
Alexandria.
Geer’s family has been notably
quiet throughout this seven-month period. Their lawyer, Mike Lieberman of
Alexandria, declined to comment Tuesday. In February, after Morrogh announced
he was handing the case to the feds, Geer’s father, Don Geer, told The Post: “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.”
Brian Buchner is president of
the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, a large
group of local police oversight groups. Of the Fairfax case, Buchner said:
“While not typical, there are cases where a prosecutor’s decision in an
officer-involved shooting case has taken seven months or longer to make.”
Buchner works for the Los Angeles Police Commission’s inspector general, and
L.A. has literally dozens of police shootings every year. So he should know.
It is cases like the death of
John Geer that led to the formation of the Virginia Citizens Coalition for
Police Accountability, in particular the 2009 Fairfax police killing of unarmed
motorist David Masters on Route 1 in the Alexandria area. The coalition has
continued to press for some sort of formal civilian oversight on police
actions, as is done in many other large jurisdictions, including the District.
When the police shoot and kill someone, and then remain completely silent for
seven months, it’s hard to vouch for the reliability of the current system
where the police investigate the police.
John Geer
