Fairfax County Police Watch: Raw: NYPD officer knocks teen unconscious with punch over suspicious cigarette

A video showing an NYPD officer apparently knocking out a Brooklyn teen surfaced on Wednesday – the same day footage of another cop allegedly stealing more than $1,000 from a Brooklyn construction worker went viral.

A video showing an NYPD officer apparently knocking out a Brooklyn teen surfaced on Wednesday — the same day footage of another cop allegedly stealing more than $1,000 from a Brooklyn construction worker went viral.

The officer stopped 17-year-old Marcel Hamer on June 4 in Clinton Hill on suspicion of smoking marijuana, police said.

The video begins showing Marcel Hamer lying on his back, shouting in pain with the cop's left foot planted on Hamer's stomach. He then pleads repeatedly with the cop, saying he wasn't smoking marijuana.

"You wanna get f----- up?" the plainclothes cop threatens in the opening moments of the 54-second video.

"Mister, it was just a cigarette, sir," Hamer says. "It was just a cigarette."

The knockout strike isn't caught on video but the sound of a punch is clearly heard in the recording.

"Yeah, get it on film," the cop barks to the bystander after the blow while he tries to cuff Hamer.

"Turn around," he instructs the seemingly unresponsive teen. Hamer's apparently limp arm is seen falling onto the pavement as the cop tries to cuff him.

"You knocked him out! He knocked Marcel out!" one of the teen's friends repeatedly shouts.

Plainclothes police officer subdues and arrests Marcel Hamer, 17, after accusing him of smoking marijuana as he was walking home from school on June 4 down Gates Ave. with friends near Waverly Ave. in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. This is the moment when the cop allegedly knocks out Hamer.

Plainclothes police officer subdues and arrests Marcel Hamer, 17, after accusing him of smoking marijuana as he was walking home from school on June 4, 2014 down Gates Avenue with friends near Waverly Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. This is the moment when the cop allegedly knocks out Hamer.

Police said the officer who struck Hamer has since been suspended. Another officer who was also there has been stripped of his gun and badge.

The clip was first obtained by the Brooklyn Paper.

Another video, obtained by the Daily News, shows an officer allegedly removing $1,300 from Lomard Joye's pocket during a stop-and-frisk in Coney Island. Joye was then pepper sprayed when he demanded his money back.

When Joye's sister, Lateefah Joye, tried to get the cop's badge number, she too was pepper sprayed.

The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating both incidents.

With Joseph Barracato

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.