Fairfax County Police Watch: Washington police officer charged with tipping off prostitute

By Lexi Belculfine / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A City of Washington police officer was charged today with warning a prostitute about undercover details, the county district attorney's office announced.

Joshua Rush, 39, of Canonsburg, a 10-year veteran of the Washington Police Department, faces a misdemeanor count each of obstructing administration of law, hindering prosecution by warning the actor and recklessly endangering another person, court records show.

"Today’s arrest should not be viewed as a reflection on other police officers in Washington. The Washington Police Department immediately investigated information which given to them by another police officer and took the appropriate action, District Attorney Eugene Vittone said in a prepared statement.

While police were targeting the area of Hall Avenue, Church Street and North Franklin Street -- known for a high volume of prostitution -- on in the early morning of Sept. 17, they detained a woman who offered an undercover officer sexual favors for money, according to a criminal complaint.

The woman asked to call Officer Rush and showed officers text messages they'd exchanged. Officer Rush told her he was distracting his supervisor from arresting prostitutes so the woman wouldn't be charged, the criminal complaint states.

Police obtained a search warrant to view the phone's contents.

Between Aug. 22 and Sept. 17, the woman asked Officer Rush to provide details of undercover operations, prior warning and protection from arrests. He responded with descriptions of undercover operations and vehicles being used by undercover officers.

Officer Rush's attorney Joseph Francis said, "I'm pretty confident the evidence will show he did not jeopardize any of this fellow officers. He has too much respect for his fellow officers and the badge."

The woman told police she met Officer Rush during a 2007 arrest, and they have been in a sexual relationship for about five years, according to the criminal complaint. She would contact him when she was coming to Washington to engage in prostitution and to meet.

Texts between the two included requests for naked pictures and photos of the officer in uniform, the criminal complaint states.

Mr. Francis said he is looking into Officer Rush's relationship with the woman and "whether it affected his police work."

Officer Rush was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Robert Redlinger and bond was set at $ 10,000.

Mr. Francis said he did not know Officer Rush's status with the department, and no police representatives could be reached for comment. It was unclear if the woman, who has been arrested multiple times since 2002 for prostitution and narcotics possession, faces charges in this case.

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.