Fairfax County Police Watch: Madison County Sheriff’s Office settles lawsuit with man badly beaten after arrest

BY CLAIRE AIELLO,

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – A man has reached a settlement with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office after being badly beaten during an arrest in 2012.

Robert Bryant filed a civil lawsuit against Madison County Sheriff Blake Dorning and eight of his deputies, claiming false arrest and conspiracy to cover up a “revenge beatdown.”

Sheriff Dorning announced Thursday the two sides have reached a settlement through mediation.

An insurance company represented the Sheriff and deputies, and settled with Bryant and his attorneys. Sheriff Dorning said his office admits no liability or responsibility with regard the allegations made by Bryant.

Bryant was arrested during a traffic stop in August 2012, but was involved in a bar fight with one of the deputies weeks earlier. That deputy, Justin Watson, was in plain clothes at the time of the fight.

Bryant accused seven deputies of beating Bryant or watching him be punched and kicked while unconscious and handcuffed at the side of the road. The eighth deputy was accused of helping falsify investigative reports.

WHNT News 19 spoke with one of Bryant’s attorneys, Jeremiah Hodges, to see how Bryant is doing. Hodges said Bryant is doing okay physically, but is scarred emotionally from the ordeal.

“We are disappointed that the Sheriff’s office continues to fail to accept responsibility for the horrific revenge attack on Robert Bryant. We believe that the evidence and the settlement paint a clearer picture than a press release.”

“While we are thrilled for our client, we know that money cannot buy safety for him when he can no longer trust those sworn to protect and serve,” Hodges added.

Our news partners The Huntsville Times/Al.com covered this case extensively. Bryant’s lawsuit argued the deputies concocted a false account to hide the attack on Bryant and that Sheriff Dorning later learned of the events and did nothing to discipline the officers nor drop the charges.

Dorning said the county’s insurance company settled the case out of court to minimize attorney’s fees, expecting the case would have taken several years.

The Sheriff and deputies’ legal counsel fees were paid by Madison County’s insurance company under the County’s insurance policy.

Prior to the settlement, Bryant had requested a trial by jury.

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.