Fairfax County Police Watch

Billy Rowe

A former Fort Smith police officer was sentenced Monday to five years in prison on five counts of sexual assault. Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue said Billy W. Rowe Jr., 32, of Bonanza was sentenced to five years in the Arkansas Department of Correction with an additional suspension of 15 years on each count. Rowe faced five to 20 years on each count. Shue said Rowe also paid $2,500 in restitution for future counseling for the victim. Rowe was charged under a section of the sexual-assault statute that makes it unlawful for someone who is a mandated reporter and in a position of trust or authority to engage in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity with a minor, according to a report. Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey ordered an investigation into Rowe on Sept. 11, after the department received multiple anonymous calls reporting Rowe had a relationship with a minor female. The girl said she met Rowe through church about a year previously, and they became close at church camp where Rowe was “somewhat of a youth leader.” They started communicating on Facebook, and they ended up exchanging text messages daily after he gave her his cell phone number, according to a police report. A Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office report alleges their first sexual encounter occurred when the girl went on a ride-along with Rowe. They stopped at her house where no one else was home and engaged in oral sex, according to the report. They subsequently had sexual intercourse three times at a pond near Bonanza and once at Rowe’s Bonanza home, and they exchanged nude pictures of themselves via cellphone before the relationship ended prior to the school year, according to a police report. Rowe told investigators, “I can’t answer any questions like that” when asked if he had sex with the girl. But he did say he did “bad things,” according to a police report. Rowe resigned from the police department shortly before he was arrested Sept. 17. After his arrest, investigators with the police department and sheriff’s office spoke with Rowe’s father, Billy Rowe Sr., his brother, Shane Rowe, and his pastor, who confirmed Rowe told them he had sex with the girl twice, according to police and sheriff’s office reports. Rowe began serving his sentence Monday, and was placed into custody at the Sebastian County Adult Detention Center to await transfer to the state, Shue said.

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.