Fairfax County Police Watch: The cop crime wave continues. This week’s rape by cop report

Rape kit testing helps indict former MPD officer in a 2000 rape

By Jason Miles

MEMPHIS, TN -

(WMC) - A former Memphis police officer was indicted on aggravated rape charges. A back-logged rape kit finally got tested and helped lead to the indictment which stems from an attack that happened 14 years ago.

Bridges Randle, 40, is accused of raping a woman in her apartment on June 24, 2000. He changed his name, but Memphis investigators still tracked him down to Atlanta, Georgia where he worked for The Boys & Girls Club.

"We've been working very hard to get through this backlog and to make sure all of these kits get tested and get the results we have today," District Attorney Amy Weirich said.

Randle remains locked up at the Shelby County Jail on a $250,000 bond.

He is accused of raping a 23-year-old woman at gunpoint in 2000. Investigators say it happened at a Fox Meadows area apartment.

Police had been there earlier in the day on June 24, 2000 responding to a domestic violence call. The alleged victim told investigators that a man acting like a police officer later returned to ask more questions.

The woman says that man pulled a gun on her, forced her into a bedroom, and raped her.

DNA evidence from an previously untested rape kit identified the suspect as Randle. At the time, he was an officer with Memphis police.

Randle left MPD in 2001 and was most recently an administrator with The Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, where he went by another name.

"It's a good day for the victim and the community," Amy Weirich said.

Randle will be arraigned in criminal court on Friday.

The Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta released the following statement:

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta has learned that a staff member has been accused of rape and is being held on bond in the Shelby County Jail in Tennessee. The staff member was stationed at our central office downtown and was not an employee of a specific Club location. To our knowledge, the alleged activity took place more than 10 years ago in Tennessee and does not in any way involve anyone in Georgia or any minors.

We are deeply concerned and alarmed by this allegation, and have taken immediate action. The employee has been terminated and we have prohibited this individual's access to our organization and any of our operations.

The safety and protection of the children we serve is the number one priority of the Boys & Girls Clubs. Our organization is committed to the highest standards of ethical behavior and integrity, and does not tolerate inappropriate or illegal activity on the part of any Club staff, volunteer or youth member. As part our commitment to safety, we conduct criminal background checks on all staff. Each background check must verify the person's identity and search all 50-state criminal databases and sex offender registries.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta will continue its full cooperation with the authorities on this matter.

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.