Fairfax County Police Watch: Pine Lawn officer charged with raping Lindenwood University student at apartment in St. Charles

By Susan Weich

ST. CHARLES • A reserve officer with the Pine Lawn Police Department has been charged with raping his former girlfriend at an apartment in St. Charles in May.

Rico L. Frazier, 23, of the 5900 block of San Simeon Drive in south St. Louis County, was charged Thursday with burglary, rape, felonious restraint and two counts of sodomy.

The woman, 22, a student at Lindenwood University, reported the attack just before 4 a.m. on May 1. It happened about two miles from campus at the Time Centre Apartments, 901 Time Centre Drive. The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Frazier had been a volunteer reserve police officer with the Pine Lawn Police Department for three months at the time of the assault. He graduated from the Eastern Missouri Police Academy in November 2013.

Pine Lawn Police Lt. Steven Blakeny said Frazier was with the department as a reserve until the end of June when he told officers he was taking a paying job with another department. It could not be determined Thursday whether another department hired him. Blakeny said Frazier did not volunteer with the department after the attack.

“This kid on paper appeared to be stellar,” he said. “He was one of the standout students at the academy.”

Frazier and the woman dated until October 2013, St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said and remained friends afterward. The two had spoken as recently as the day before the assault, and the conversation had been cordial, he said.

Police gave this account of the attack:

Frazier smashed in the sliding glass door of the woman’s apartment about 3 a.m., while she was sleeping. Frazier then sprayed her in the face with law enforcement-grade pepper spray, temporarily blinding her.

He tackled the woman and repeatedly beat her face into the floor as he pulled her hair. The woman fought back and was able to rip a necklace off Frazier, but he overpowered her and raped her.

Frazier then forced her to go downstairs where he sexually assaulted her a second time on a futon in the living room. While Frazier was going through her dresser drawers, the woman called 911. When Frazier heard her on the phone, he fled the scene.

Photographs of Frazier were located on social media that showed him wearing the necklace left behind at the apartment. The pepper spray, which also was left behind, matched the make and model of the spray Frazier was issued as a reserve officer, police said.

DNA evidence from the victim, pepper spray can, necklace and bedding matched Frazier’s DNA, according to court documents.

Lohmar said although police suspected Frazier early on in the investigation, the victim initially didn’t think the attacker was Frazier because for much of the 45-minute attack, she couldn’t see clearly because of the pepper spray. In addition, Frazier apparently disguised his voice, Lohmar said.

Though police were able to gather significant DNA evidence, they did not have Frazier’s DNA for comparison until just recently, Lohmar said.

Frazier’s bail is set at $200,000 cash only.

Kim Bell of the Post-Dispatch contributed information to this report.

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.