Fairfax County Police Watch: Demoted Seabrook police officer's grievance rejected

By Patrick Cronin

pcronin@seacoastonline.com

September 02, 2014 4:24 PM

SEABROOK — A grievance filed by a former police lieutenant, upset that he was demoted in the aftermath of an investigation into a 2009 alleged police brutality incident, has been denied.

Town Manager Bill Manzi said Tuesday that officer John Wasson’s demotion from lieutenant to patrolman will stand after denying the grievance at his level.

Manzi said if Wasson is not satisfied with the decision he can appeal to the Board of Selectmen or go right to arbitration.

Wasson met behind closed doors with Manzi for roughly one hour on Aug. 21, with union representatives arguing that Wasson was wrongly demoted.

The demotion occurred July 23 after the completion of an independent internal affairs investigation into the alleged assault of then 19-year-old prisoner Michael Bergeron Jr., of Seabrook, on Nov. 11, 2009.

Wasson, a department supervisor, allegedly failed to report the incident to superiors and failed to look into the matter when asked by the alleged victim’s mother, according to the investigation conducted by Municipal Resources Inc.

Wasson was one of four officers disciplined as a result of MRI’s findings. Officers Mark Richardson and Adam Laurent were terminated, while Officer Keith Dietenhofer was suspended for two days.

Richardson allegedly slammed Bergeron, now 23, face-first into the cell block wall after Bergeron was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Laurent allegedly pepper sprayed Bergeron a short time later while Bergeron was on the floor.

The alleged assault first came to light on Jan. 6 of this year after Bergeron posted station surveillance video of the incident on YouTube.

Richardson was indicted in March on one count of simple assault by an on-duty police officer.

Richardson is the only officer facing criminal charges. He is scheduled for trial in November.

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.