Fairfax County Police Watch: Trial date set for officer accused of slitting dog's throat

THE EPIDEMIC OF MENTALLY UNSTABLE COPS IN AMERICA CONTINUES

By David Collins

Officer Jeffrey Bolger pleads not guilty

BALTIMORE —A trial date is set for a Baltimore City police officer accused of slitting a dog's throat, killing it in June.

A Baltimore City police officer is charged with aggravated animal cruelty for cutting the throat of a dog, police officials announce.

Officer Jeffrey Bolger, 49, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Thursday, seeking a jury trial. A trial date was set for Nov. 7. The judge will rule later on a defense motion to dismiss the case.

Bolger is charged with aggravated animal cruelty, animal mutilation and misconduct in office in the alleged killing of a 7-year-old shar-pei, Nala. According to charging documents, officers responded to the Canton area on June 14 regarding a pregnant woman who was bitten by Nala, who was off her leash.

According to charging documents, Bolger slit the dog's throat while Officer Thomas Schmidt held it. Schmidt faces three criminal counts of aggravated animal cruelty, animal abuse and misconduct in office.

New information emerged during arraignment as attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges, disputing witness accounts that Bolger set out to gut the dog. Court documents say the shar-pei fought for more than an hour to escape and that Bolger considered using his service revolver to euthanize the dog.

"It would have endangered the lives of those individuals because of a potential of a ricochet bullet," defense attorney Steve Levin said.

Defense attorneys said reports of Bolger yelling "I'm going to gut this dog" are untrue. Attorneys said, "Bolger stated in a frustrated manner that he was going to have to cut the dog."

"It is very convenient that now that's a story they are going to go with and that's a word that rhymes with gut," said Nala's owner, Sarah Gossard, who called the motion to dismiss ridiculous.

"We filed a motion to dismiss based on the fact the state's attorney brought charges without showing there was sufficient probable cause," Levin said.

Court papers say Bolger used his knife in the least painful way to euthanize the dog and that he acted according to the law. Attorneys said Bolger used his knife in a fashion that placed the public in the least amount of danger.

"The Baltimore City Police Department did not provide these officers with the proper equipment, and in a frustrated manner, Agent Bolger determined he would have to use his knife," Levin said.

"(I want them) to lose their jobs because I wouldn't want this to happen to someone else, and I would love to see them do jail time," Gossard said. "Both of these officers have dogs. It's disgusting to me. I think their dogs should be taken away from them."

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.