Fairfax County Police Watch: If you threatened a cop, what would happen to you? Well it doesn’t happen to them

SAPD sergeant suspended for threatening text messages to female officer

Dillon Collier, KENS 5 6:49 p.m. CDT September 3, 2014

Sgt. Dale Sanders was suspended three days in April, according to suspension paperwork released by the city following an open records request from the I-Team

SAN ANTONIO -- A San Antonio Police sergeant was suspended earlier this year after sending a series of threatening text messages to a female officer.

Sgt. Dale Sanders was suspended three days in April, according to suspension paperwork released by the city following an open records request from the I-Team.

Sanders, who was already under investigation for comments he made to another female officer injured in the line of duty in April 2013, admitted to sending the text messages to Officer Eloisa Mondragon.

Mondragon had told internal affairs investigators that comments made by Sanders to injured Officer Misty Floyd were inappropriate

Sanders criticized Floyd for failing to call for a cover officer before trying to arrest a man for public intoxication in the 4700 block of Dietrich Road, according to internal affairs paperwork.

Floyd and the man, identified as David Ricks, got into a physical altercation that forced them both to be hospitalized.

Floyd suffered undisclosed injuries and was forced to TASER Ricks before other officers arrived on scene and helped take Ricks into custody.

An attorney representing Ricks in his upcoming trial for assault of a peace officer said his client suffered fractures to his shoulder, ribs. sternum and ankle, a collapsed lung and head injuries.

Mondragon filed a harassment complaint against Sanders in October 2013, shortly after receiving the text messages.

Sanders told Mondragon via text message: "No more comments to IA (Internal Affairs) that I was rude", "Should have never wrote that Ellie. Comments like that hurt your career", and "There are plenty of examples around this place that some spvrs (supervisors) hold a grudge their entire career".

While researching this story, the I-Team found this was not the first time Sgt. Sanders had been investigated by SAPD.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, a Bexar County grand jury indicted Sgt. Sanders in May 2004 for working as a private security guard at the north-side subdivision where he lived, while on duty.

A jury acquitted Sanders of both felony charges in October 2005, according to the Express-News.

Should have never wrote that Ellie. Comments like that hurt your career

Officer Floyd now works as a media spokesperson for the police department.

Ricks is scheduled to go to trial September 16.

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.