Fairfax County Police Watch: Connecticut officer charged with rights violation

By John Christoffersen

NEW HAVEN — A Bridgeport police officer has been charged with violating a man’s civil rights by using unreasonable force during an arrest captured on video, prosecutors said Friday.

A grand jury indicted Clive Higgins, 48, the US attorney’s office said. Higgins pleaded not guilty Friday in New Haven federal court and was released on $50,000 bond.

His lawyer, federal public defender Paul Thomas, declined to comment beyond his client’s plea.

The video showed police officers kicking and stomping Orlando Lopez-Soto after he was shot with a stun gun and fell to the ground in Beardsley Park in 2011 following a car chase. It is unclear who recorded the video, which was posted online.

Prosecutors said that after another officer deployed his stun gun, Higgins approached the man, who was lying prone on the ground, and kicked him in the head and neck.

Higgins, a Bridgeport police officer since 2002, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. He was placed on unpaid suspension Friday, a police spokesman said.

The other two officers, Elson Morales and Joseph Lawlor, pleaded guilty in June to deprivation of rights under color of law. Morales and Lawlor agreed to resign and each face up to a year in prison when they are sentenced Sept. 2.

Prosecutors said Morales used his stun gun a second time after Lopez-Soto was effectively incapacitated and Lawlor kicked him several times.

The city recently settled the case by agreeing to pay $198,000 to Lopez-Soto.

The victim said in his lawsuit that he was motionless on the ground and not resisting when the officers kicked and stomped him. He said he suffered pain, a cut to his lip that left a scar, body and face bruises and a fracture to his hand.

Lawlor wrote in a police report that Lopez-Soto struggled with officers after falling to the ground when Morales zapped him with a stun gun. Lawlor said Lopez-Soto was wearing a gun holster on his belt, and officers later found a loaded handgun and drugs in his van.

All three officers seen in the video, which surfaced in 2013, were placed on paid administrative duty pending a police internal affairs investigation. NAACP leaders at the time called on police officials to arrest and fire the officers.

Lopez-Soto pleaded guilty to drug and gun charges in July 2012 and was sentenced to five years in prison.

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.