Fairfax County Police Watch: COP GIVEN SUMMER VACATION FOR BRUTALITY……why doesn’t the federal government do something about the cops?

SEABROOK — Two Seabrook police officers were fired Wednesday and two others disciplined in connection with a 2009 assault on a prisoner that was caught on police station surveillance video and released earlier this year.

Officer Mark Richardson and Officer Adam Laurent were fired for excessive force while Officer Keith Dietenhofer was suspended for two days without pay and Lt. John Wasson was demoted to patrolman.

The disciplinary action was announced Wednesday during a news conference at Town Hall. It coincided with the release of an independent report on the incident by Municipal Resources Inc. of Meredith.

Town Manager William Manzi said the report was conducted to determine whether department policies were followed on Nov. 11, 2009, after the arrest of Michael Bergeron Jr.

“The actions today … represent the consensus view of the chief, myself and the Board of Selectmen,” Manzi said of the firings and other punishments.

The video shows Richardson slam Bergeron, then 19, into a wall in a police station hallway. Bergeron is then seen struggling to stand up and gain his balance before falling down. Laurent then sprayed him in the face with pepper spray then appeared to smile into the surveillance camera.

The incident was captured on a Police Department surveillance camera and released to Bergeron's attorney nearly four years ago in response to a formal request for the footage. It was posted to YouTube Jan. 6.

Bergeron was arrested at about 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2009, and charged with driving while intoxicated and drug possession. He was booked and processed at the Seabrook police station and was being led to a holding cell when the incident took place.

According to the report, Richardson, who stands 6-feet 6-inches tall and weighs nearly 300 pounds, claimed he was in fear of Bergeron, who weighs close to 145 pounds, when the incident took place. He also claimed he was only trying to get a better grip on the prisoner when he slammed him into the wall.

Investigators determined Laurent also used excessive force when he sprayed a stunned Bergeron in the face as he lay on the floor.

The level of force shown on the video would not be justified under any circumstances, Police Chief Lee Bitomske said Wednesday.

The town's investigation found Laurent and Dietenhofer filed supplemental reports about the incident that included key omissions. For instance, Dietenhofer apparently revised his report to delete reference to Richardson's “arm bar” maneuver against Bergeron.

Wasson was not in the station when the incident took place. However, investigators found he was aware of Richardson's “arm bar” against Bergeron but failed to require an additional review of that use of force as mandated by department rules.

Bitomske characterized the incident and subsequent investigation as a “dark cloud” for the department that exposed the need for revised protocols and better training to prevent a repeat incident.

“In this job, no matter how much training you have, situations do happen, good and bad,” said Bitomske, who was appointed chief after the 2009 incident. “We just take from this and learn what we can do to try to better train the officers.”

Attorney Joseph McKittrick, who represents Seabrook, said the disciplinary action announced Wednesday makes clear the town won't tolerate police misconduct.

Richardson was placed on paid leave in January. He was placed on unpaid leave in April after a Rockingham County grand jury indicted him for simple assault in connection with this incident. The N.H. Attorney General's Office is prosecuting this case and attempts Wednesday to determine where it stands were not successful.

The grand jury declined to indict Laurent. He and Dietenhofer have been on paid leave since January.

Bergeron was convicted in April of a 2013 burglary in Hampton and is serving a 1- to 3-year sentence in N.H. State Prison.

His mother, Joyce Bergeron, attended Wednesday's news conference. She thanked town officials for their efforts to find out what happened to her son. She described the release of the report and the actions against the officers as a relief.

She said her son decided to post the video in January because he was worried another person would be treated the same way by Seabrook police.

“It just bothered him for all these years,” she 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.