Fairfax County Police Watch: Foust is done...now we toss out her Majesty Gerry "Opps deary" Hyland the killer cops best friend

Delay in Shooting Investigation Decried
Supervisors urge action by U.S. attorney.

John Geer, standing in his doorway, minutes before he was shot by a Fairfax County Police officer. Photo courtesy of Michael Lieberman
By Tim Peterson
#The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors decided they’ve exercised enough patience with U.S. Attorney Dana Boente’s office. Now more than 13 months after Fairfax County police shot and killed John Geer, standing unarmed in the doorway of his Springfield home, Board chairman Sharon Bulova addressed the silence from Boente.
#In a letter to Boente, dated Sept. 19 and released last week, Bulova acknowledged the U.S. attorney’s office has had the Geer case since January 2014.
#“Since the shooting occurred,” Bulova said in the letter, “our citizens have regularly contacted various members of the board to communicate their concern and at times displeasure that the criminal investigation into this incident has not yet been completed.”
#After the shooting on Aug. 29, 2013, the initial investigation by the Fairfax County Police Department was handed off to Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Raymond Morrogh. Several months and a pair of conflicts of interest — cited by Morrogh — later, the case was transferred to Boente’s office.
#Fairfax County Police have yet to release any information to the Geer family or the public regarding details of the shooting or their own internal investigation. The U.S. Department of Justice been just as forthcoming.
#“The board, however, would like to express to you the importance of a resolution of this matter,” Bulova wrote in the letter, “as that will go a long way towards allowing our citizens to have faith in the process by which police shooting incidents are investigated.”
#In an Oct. 10 response, a spokesman from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said they have no additional comment in light of Bulova’s letter.
#John Geer’s father Don recently penned a letter of his own, not to Boente but to Nicholas Beltrante, executive director and founder of the Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability (CCPA). Beltrante was inspired to begin petitioning the Board of Supervisors to appoint a citizens’ police oversight board after the 2010 police shooting of David Masters.
#“We have now spent 13 frustrating months trying to acquire information as to who, why, etc. John was killed,” Don Geer said in the letter. “The Police Department policy of investigating a case, then hiding behind internal rules to avoid releasing information while working to exonerate the shooter is unacceptable. This does not provide justice for the victim, satisfaction for the public or closure for the family.”
#Don Geer summarized his account of what happened to his son, and the timeline that followed.
#“Therefore,” his letter continued, “I fully support the appointment of a Citizens Complaint Review Board that would report to the county Board of Supervisors to provide transparency and accountability for the actions of the Police Department.”
#Last month, Geer family lawyer Michael Lieberman filed a $12 million wrongful death and gross negligence suit against the Fairfax County Police Department.
#For more information on the Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability, visit www.virginiaccpa.com.

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.