Fairfax County Police Watch: 4 NOPD Officers Arrested In July: What’s Being Done?

by Vanessa Bolano

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) - New Orleans police are seeing a spike in arrests of fellow officers; four just this month. WGNO News Anchor Vanessa Bolano looks at what’s being done.

Four veteran New Orleans police officers are finding themselves suspended and on the wrong side of the law. This past week two were locked up.

On Tuesday, 26-year-veteran Officer Willie Gant Sr. was arrested on two counts of indecent behavior with juveniles and sexual battery on a juvenile. Days earlier, Officer Stephanie Caldwell was booked with felony charges of domestic violence. Reports show she was trying to run over her husband and instead lost control of her car.

The two incidents don’t stand alone. On July 14th, Officer Christopher Carter was charged with domestic abuse battery, and battery involving strangulation, and three days earlier Detective Robert Hurst was booked with simple battery. His attempted murder charge has since been dropped.

Attorney Raymond Burkart with the Fraternal Order of Police says the allegations have affected everyone on the force.

“Whether or not there’s some pattern here, or is it all coincidental, I think it’s too early to tell. I don’t think we have an epidemic in our department. We never did, but the fact is the law mandates strict enforcement and the new batch of laws that’s going to take effect at midnight tonight has even more enforcement and more severe penalties,” says Burkart.

Burkart says they’ve spoken to officers about the new batch of domestic violence laws that include new gun laws, divorce laws, alimony laws, and protection from stalking.

“That’s a sad day, but it’s also a day of recognition that we are not going to tolerate misconduct that’s illegal and we’re going to go and make those arrests,” says NOPD Supt. Ronal Serpas.

Chief Ronal Serpas says his officers are trained to know right from wrong, and the department has a zero tolerance policy. He says since he’s been Superintendent they’ve arrested 79 officers, but both Burkart and Serpas believe stress on the job is not an excuse.

“They do need more help. they do need more backing. that doesn’t mean they are all turning into domestic violence abusers. it’s not going to happen. it doesn’t happen,” says Burkart.

The four officers arrested in July have been placed on emergency suspension without pay pending their investigations.

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.