Fairfax County Police Watch: Why we need IQ standards for cops in America

City settles with Brooklyn men arrested by NYPD cops who confused Jolly Rancher candies for crystal meth

EXCLUSIVE: With their $33,000 payday, plaintiffs Love Olatunjiojo, Omar Ferriera and Jimmy Santos no longer have a sour taste in their mouths over the trippy busts last year in Coney Island.

BY JOHN MARZULLI

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 2:30 AM

The city has dispensed a sweet settlement to three Brooklyn men who sued the NYPD after cops bizarrely mistook Jolly Rancher candies for crystal meth, the Daily News has learned.

With their $33,000 payday, plaintiffs Love Olatunjiojo, Omar Ferriera and Jimmy Santos no longer have a sour taste in their mouths over the trippy busts last year in Coney Island.

The city admitted no wrongdoing on the part of the cops, arguing they couldn’t be sure whether the red and blue rocks were illicit drugs or candy, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer Kenneth Smith.

“To my knowledge there is no evidence in the scientific literature that crystal meth looks like Jolly Ranchers or rock candy, other than from the ‘Breaking Bad’ TV show,” Smith told The News.

“Walter White may dictate what drugs look like in TV land, but not the narcotics policy of the NYPD,” Smith added, referring to the meth-dealing lead character of the acclaimed show.

Olatunjiojo, 26, and Ferriera 23, were stopped by the cops shortly after leaving the It’Sugar candy emporium on Surf Ave. where they had purchased various sweet treats including Jolly Ranchers, according to papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Police Officers Jermaine Taylor and Jovanny Calderon handcuffed the men and claimed that an undercover colleague had observed them selling drugs, the court papers state.

“Finding only candy, including the Jolly Rancher candy mentioned, the officers repeatedly searched Ferreira and Olatunjiojo and told them it was ‘only a matter of time before they found something,’” the suit states.

Sano, 27, standing nearby with his 3-year-old daughter, protested the arrests of his two friends. Officer Diana Pichardo ordered Sano’s arrest and he was allegedly punched in the face by an unidentified cop before all three men were transported to the 60th Precinct station house.

Court documents filed in connection with the drug possession charges against Olatunjiojo and Ferriera asserted that the cops had performed a field test on the candy and it tested positive for a controlled substance. Sano was charged with obstructing government administration. They spent about 24 hours in custody before a judge released them on their own recognizance.

A spokesman for the city Law Department said the settlement was in the best interest of all parties.

The NYPD laboratory later concluded the two red and four blue “crystalline rocks of solid material” were not drugs and the case went up in smoke.

After the suit was filed, Smith said he was informed by the city that there was in fact no drug field test performed and that the cops insisted the district attorney’s officer was never told otherwise.

Olatunjiojo and Ferriera will pocket $4,000 each and $25,000 to Sano to settle their claims, according to papers filed last month. Olatunjiojo and Ferriera will receive less because the cops determined during the booking process that there were outstanding bench warrants against them for failing to show up in court for quality of life summonses.

Smith said the summonses were not for drug-related violations.

A spokesman for the city Law Department said the settlement was in the best interest of all parties.

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.