Police misconduct investigated
after video surfaces

By Colin Steiner

REDDING, Calif. -

A video of a Redding police
officer taking offense to being filmed by a citizen has racked up more than
50,000 views on YouTube since being posted last Sunday and has many calling his
behavior “misconduct,” prompting an internal affairs investigation into the
incident.

The video shot on Saturday, June 21, shows Redding police officer

Brandon Largent speaking with a man involved in an altercation at the
Dollar Tree Store.

25-year-old Nick Hyatt says officer Largent raised his voice with the man, and that’s when he pulled out his phone to capture some video.

“The officer started yelling, ‘You disrespected me! Get on the ground!’ And I was like, ‘Cool, some drama for YouTube.’ And I got my phone out and started recording him,” Hyatt said.

Largent soon notices he’s being videotaped by Hyatt, and apparently takes umbrage, turning his attention to Hyatt.

“You, get in your car and leave now!,” Largent yells in the video. “You're interrupting my investigation! Right now!”

Hyatt replies to the commands, “I'm more than 25 feet away, I have a right to record you in your line of service!”

Largent asks for an officer to watch the man he has detained and starts walking toward Hyatt.

“Put your phone down on the hood of the car right now!” Largent says. Then raising his voice even more as Hyatt appears to be complying, “Down on the hood of the car!”

With Hyatt’s camera turned to the sky, the ensuing events can only be heard. Largent takes Hyatt’s information and relays it into SHASCOM dispatch. Moments later it cuts out.

“If you take the video-- just on the face (of the) video--it's obviously very disappointing,” Redding police chief Robert Paoletti said Monday afternoon. “What's on the video may not be

the totality of the circumstance itself. So I want to wait until the investigation
is done and see what occurred start to finish.”

Paoletti says an internal affairs process is underway. He also says the department has contacted Hyatt asking him if he wants to file a complaint, which he refused.

He also says officers are trained and told about a citizen journalist’s constitutional right to film an on-duty officer.

“We're going to review our policies, review our practices and make sure that all of that is covered and that the officers have that knowledge base,” Paoletti said, “because obviously
it might have been a little lacking in this case.”

As far as all the trouble he’s caused, Hyatt says if given a second chance he’d rethink the whole incident, but also hopes he may have done some good for the community.

“You know, if somebody else doesn't have to experience it, it's worth it,” he says. “I kind of just want it all to be over with. We all make mistakes. I make mistakes at work, he makes

mistakes, so that's kind of where I'm at today with it.”

Paoletti says results of the internal investigation will likely never be revealed to the public. Such matters are strictly protected by the Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights.

Name Released in Officer-Involved Shooting

By Robyn Ridpath, Assignment Editor

POSTED: 4:50 PM Apr 16 2013

REDDING, Calif. -
The Redding Police Department released the officer's name who was involved in a shooting on Apr. 11 on Mistletoe Lane.

Officer Brandon Largent has been employed by the Redding Police Department since Sept. 2012 and prior to that he served four years in the United States Marine Corps and five years with the Pasadena Police Department.

Police said around 2 a.m. on Apr. 11, Largent approached two people riding bicycles in the 800-block of Mistletoe Lane after there were reports of shots fired in the area.

When the officer arrived, he stopped Robert Barron, 35, and Alexander Restuchi, 26, who both had warrants out for their arrest. When Officer Largent tried to take them into custody, Barron became violent and attacked the officer according to police.

A struggle between Barron and the officer forced the officer to discharge his firearm striking Barron in the chest.

Police said after Barron was shot he continued to struggle with the officer and fled on foot. After a brief foot pursuit, Barron was taken into custody by the officer.

Barron was transported to a local hospital with a serious gunshot wound to his chest. Restuchi was cooperative with police and was taken in for questioning.

Deputies said during the struggle the officer received injuries and was transported to the hospital were he was treated and later released.

The Redding Police Department requested the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office take over the investigation per interagency protocol. The investigation is ongoing.

BRANDON LARGENT
POLICE OFFICER

Regular pay:	$53,196.00
Overtime pay:	$1,716.82
Other pay:	$2,219.85
Total pay:	$57,132.67
Total benefits:	$38,682.76
Total pay & benefits:	$95,815.43

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.