Fairfax County Police Watch: Village's new cop fired in 1st week on job, then Arrested

By Dan Hinkel, Tribune reporter

In the days after he started work as a police officer in a small McHenry County village, Ryszard Kopacz was fired, investigated by the state police, arrested and charged with several felonies.

Kopacz had been on the job less than a week when a resident of Richmond, a village of about 2,000 near the Wisconsin border, complained to the department that the new hire went door to door in uniform on the night of July 4, asking people for prescription narcotics, authorities said. The part-time officer didn't show up for work the next day and he was fired July 6, the department said.

The department notified the Illinois State Police of the officer's alleged solicitation of prescription drugs, authorities said, but Kopacz now faces separate charges that he burglarized his previous employer, the nearby Hebron Police Department, and possessed two stolen rifles.

Kopacz, 30, of Wauconda, was arrested Wednesday morning on charges of official misconduct, burglary and possessing stolen guns. A judge set bond at $10,000 and Kopacz was freed Thursday.

The investigation into the prescription drug-related matter is ongoing, Richmond police Chief Ciro Cetrangolo said in a statement. Illinois State Police spokeswoman Monique Bond declined to comment, citing a pending investigation.

Kopacz's lawyer, Steven Goldman, declined to comment on the details of the allegations, though he said his client denies the accusations. Goldman said Kopacz served in the Army, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was honorably discharged.

Kopacz could not be reached for comment.

Before joining the Richmond department, Kopacz was a Hebron police officer for several years. That department is now conducting an internal investigation to determine whether anything else needs to be reported to state police, said Chief Scott Annen. Kopacz, the chief said, "had his hands in a lot of facets of the Police Department."

Annen acknowledged that Kopacz had disciplinary and performance-related issues at the department, though he declined to give details. Kopacz was fired in mid-June for budgetary reasons, the chief said.

Asked whether Kopacz had been a good officer during his time in Hebron, Annen said he "didn't expect anything like this."

After residents complained to the Richmond police about the alleged July 4 incident, the department started investigating and notified McHenry County prosecutors and state police, Richmond department officials wrote in a statement.

Officers undergo a psychological evaluation and background check, the chief said.

"I have a zero-tolerance policy towards officer misconduct when alleged," Cetrangolo said in the statement. "I credit the strong working relationship and bond we have built with the citizens of our community for bringing this to my attention so quickly."

The rifles Kopacz allegedly possessed had been removed from the Hebron police station, authorities said.

Federal court records suggest Kopacz has faced financial troubles recently. He filed for bankruptcy in April 2013, declaring about $21,000 in assets against almost $90,000 in liabilities, court records show. At the time, he listed his income from the Hebron Police Department as roughly $43,000 per year.

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.