Fairfax County Police Watch: APD union president suspended several times

By Lysee Mitri

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The state board that licenses police officers has now called out Albuquerque Police Union President Stephanie Lopez for an incident that the department suspended her for last year.

This is not the first time Officer Lopez has been disciplined for misbehavior on the job.

Lopez been suspended at least three times over the past three years.

While Lopez sat at a table with Mayor Richard Berry Wednesday to sign a new contract, the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy board was calling her name to answer to the way she handled a domestic violence call last year.

An attorney showed up on her behalf as the LEA gave her a letter of caution, saying Lopez went to a home for a domestic violence call last year and stayed even after learning it involved her friend and fellow officer, Chris Cordova.

He was accused of choking his girlfriend.

KRQE News 13 has learned Lopez was trying to talk the victim out of pressing charges against Cordova.

It is a case APD is already familiar with.

Records show she wrote up four versions of her police report, eventually eliminating the part where she called a commander not involved in the investigation just to tell him about Cordova’s arrest.

Lopez’ final report claimed the woman said Cordova was not choking her, but another officer on scene noted the woman described him choking her and saying something about her dying.

Former Chief Ray Schultz gave Lopez a two-week suspension.

The year before that, Lopez got a 16-hour suspension for not reporting when she got into a car crash at 98th and Tower.

A man went to the police station later, saying Lopez rear-ended him at a red light.

In 2011, Chief Schultz suspended Lopez for two weeks for an incident with a local TV reporter.

Lopez took the reporter’s camera when citing her for criminal trespassing but never tagged it into evidence and when it was returned, it was missing some video of the confrontation.

News 13 has been trying to reach Lopez for months. She did not meet for an interv

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.