Fairfax County Police Watch: Houston Cop Dumps Family’s Dog On Road After Traffic Stop, Mayor Apologizes For Dog’s Death

The mayor of Houston, Texas, apologized last week to a woman whose beloved family dog died when a police officer forced her husband to leave it on the side of the road after a traffic stop. The helpless little 14-year-old chihuahua was already mostly blind from cataracts and didn’t stand a chance when the officer arrested Josie Garcia’s husband — on a charge that was quickly dropped anyway — and refused to let him call anyone to pick up the dog.

Josie Garcia appeared at a Houston City Council meeting on July 22 to tell her story.

On July 14, she said her husband gave a friend a ride home from a family gathering when a Houston police officer pulled his truck over, saying that he made a turn without using his turn signal.

The cop then searched the car and found, according to court records, that the friend was in possession of the drug PCP. The officer then took the two men into custody. But Garcia said her husband pleaded with the officer to let someone come and pick up Guero, the lovable chihuahua who enjoyed riding in the truck and was along for the trip.

But the Houston officer refused, telling the man to leave the dog by the side of the road, but according to Garcia, the arresting cop said it wasn’t his problem, that the dog would be fine.”

What makes the story even more unbelievable is that the arrest happened close by to Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care. But in addition to refusing to allow the man to call someone to get Guero, the officer didn’t even bother to call animal control to collect the dog.

Charges against Garcia’s husband were dropped and they put up “lost dog” posters, hoping someone had picked Gero up and they would see the dog again. Instead, they got a call from a Good Samaritan who said he saw Guero wandering up a freeway ramp near where the officer forced him to be abandoned.

The Good Samaritan said he tried to get the dog, but traffic was too heavy. Before he could reach Guero, the dog was struck and killed.

“Let me give you a public apology right now on behalf of the city of Houston,” Mayor Annise Parker said at the council meeting. “I don’t know what airhead — there’s another word in my mind but I’m not going to say it — would throw, you wouldn’t put a kid on the side of the road. You shouldn’t put someone’s pet on the side of the road.”

The report is one of many recently involving family dogs killed by police officers, seemingly for no reason.

The Houston Police Department says an investigation into what happened and why Guero was dumped on the road could take an astounding six months.

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.