Fairfax County Police Watch: County cop charged with DWI was on duty earlier in day

Hoa Nguyen

Westchester County police Sgt. Mario Guiliano was driving a county-owned vehicle when he's alleged to have drunkenly rear-ended a DOT truck on the Taconic State Parkway.

MOUNT PLEASANT – The off-duty Westchester County police sergeant charged with driving while intoxicated Wednesday had been working earlier in the day and was operating a county-owned car assigned to his unit when he rear-ended a dump truck near a construction zone, officials said.

Mario Guiliano, 46, of White Plains, a 23-year Westchester County police veteran, supervises the department's pistol licensing unit, Kieran O'Leary, public information officer for the county police, said.

Guiliano had worked a day shift at the unit on Wednesday before getting into the county-owned 2004 Chevrolet that he and other members of the unit had permission to take home, O'Leary said.

The spokesman said he did not know what time Guiliano's shift ended. The sergeant was on the Pleasantville Road entrance ramp to the Taconic State Parkway at 8:23 p.m. when he rear-ended the truck working on a state Department of Transportation road paving project, officials said.

About 20 feet from the crash site were 40 or so workers assigned to the project, DOT spokeswoman Gina DiSarro said. Prior to crashing, Guiliano would have passed a sign with flashing lights warning of the impending road work, DiSarro said.

Guiliano refused to take a field sobriety test and also refused to provide a sample for a preliminary breath screening, state police trooper and department spokeswoman Melissa McMorris said.

Guiliano was charged with DWI after the arresting trooper found a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and noticed slurred speech and watery, blood-shot eyes, McMorris said.

The police sergeant was issued traffic tickets for DWI and refusing to submit to a chemical test, which are to be returned to Mount Pleasant Town Court on Oct. 16. He remains on restricted desk duty, O'Leary said.

The truck driver, who officials did not identify, also was taken to the hospital and later released. The driver returned to work on Monday, DiSarro said.

Guiliano, who could not be reached for comment, last earned $118,693.

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.