Fairfax County Police Watch: The epidemic of mentlaly unstable cops in America. Walnut Creek police officer charged with beating woman with baseball bat

MARTINEZ, Calif. —

A Walnut Creek police officer has been charged for allegedly donning a mask and beating a woman with a baseball bat in Richmond last month, a Contra Costa County prosecutor said Monday.

Gregory Thompson, a 54-year-old Martinez resident and 30-year Walnut Creek police veteran, was charged with felony assault likely to cause great bodily injury, felony vandalism and being armed in the commission of a felony, Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove said.

Thompson's arraignment on the charges was scheduled in Contra Costa County Superior Court Monday afternoon.

Richmond police said officers arrested Thompson in the early morning hours of Aug. 16 after several residents called around 2 a.m. to report a woman screaming and a man with a bat in the 4000 block of Clinton Avenue in Richmond.

As officers arrived on the scene, witnesses pointed out Thompson, who was sitting nearby in his parked car. He wasn't wearing his police uniform or in a patrol car at the time, police said.

Officers approached the suspect and noticed a mask lying on the car's floorboard. A search of the car turned up a baseball bat, two guns and zip ties, police said.

Police said the victim was taken to a hospital for injuries suffered in the beating and was expected to recover.

Officers learned the woman had been walking in the area looking for assistance after her car ran out of gas when she was attacked.

Police last month were also attempting to locate a second woman who was also apparently wounded when she stepped in to try to stop the attack.

Thompson, who identified himself as a police officer, was arrested and taken to county jail in Richmond and released on bail the following day.

He has remained out on bail but is expected to surrender at the county jail in Martinez Monday afternoon, Grove said.

Walnut Creek police have said Thompson was placed on administrative leave soon after his arrest and that the department is conducting its own investigation.

He was working most recently as a patrol officer, according to Walnut Creek police Capt. Mark Perlite.

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.