Fairfax County Police Watch: The continuing epidemic of drunk and drugged up cops. Why doesn’t the federal government do something?

Visalia cop arrested again on DUI

Eric Woomer,

A former Visalia police officer has been arrested on suspicion of DUI, again.

Erica Martinez, 33, was arrested just after 3 a.m. Wednesday by California Highway Patrol officers. She was booked at Bob Wiley Detention Facility and was held on $10,000 bail. She was cited and released with a promise to appear in court later this summer.

Her blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit when arrested near Borderlinks Drive in Visalia.

"The investigating officer observed that the subject was displaying signs and symptoms of alcohol intoxication," according to a CHP report. "Field sobriety tests were administrated, the subject was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and arrested."

The latest DUI arrest comes exactly a week after Martinez pleaded no contest to DUI charges stemming from an August 2013 DUI.

Martinez was arrested around 2 a.m. on Aug. 4, 2013 after California Highway Patrol officers responded to the scene of a crash in northwest Visalia. Officers Jesus Magdaleno Jr. and his partner, Robert Robledo, responded and found a BMW had slammed into a Jeep near Border Links Drive and Lombard Street.

The officers arrested the driver of the BMW, Martinez, on suspicion of DUI.

The lead officer on the case, Magdaleno, died just weeks later in Las Vegas while trying to stop a car thief. His death caused the District Attorney's Office to reevaluate the case against Martinez and 61 other arrests made by Magdaleno. The DA's office announced late last year they would proceed with charges.

Visalia police placed her on administrative leave and Martinez later returned to patrol. She was fired in May.

Martinez, who was charged with DUI and excessive blood-alcohol levels, was sentenced last week to three days in jail, 40 hours of community service, five years probation and classes to help prevent this from occurring again. It's not known if she attended any classes before being arrested Wednesday.

If Martinez is charged and convicted a second time, she could face a year in jail, hefty fines and 18 months in an alcoholic rehabilitation program, as ordered by the court. She will also likely lose her license for a year and will be ordered to install an alcohol-monitoring system in any car registered in her name.

The Visalia officer is at least the second member of law enforcement in Tulare County to face DUI charges since 2011. The most recent was Tulare officer Shannon Oliver, who was also fired shortly after charges were filed.

The ex-Tulare cop who wrecked her patrol car into a fence in Visalia pleaded no contest to drunken driving charges in June 2011, avoiding a public trial.

Oliver was sentenced to eight days in jail and five years of probation.

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.