Fairfax County Police Watch: Grassley demands answers from Fairfax police, U.S. attorney in John Geer case

Few details of his death 14 months ago have been released

By Tom Jackman

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), likely to be the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined a growing chorus of voices Thursday demanding to know why Fairfax County and federal authorities have offered no explanation, and made no decisions, about the August 2013 police killing of an unarmed Springfield man.

Grassley sent letters to Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. and U.S. Attorney Dana Boente in Alexandria saying that even if the shooting of John Geer “was justified, family members and the public are entitled to a credible, independent accounting of exactly what happened at Geer’s residence on Aug. 29, 2013, and why.”

Grassley sent a series of specific questions to Roessler and Boente and asked that both respond by Dec. 1.

“How long will it be before a decision is made to either pursue an indictment or drop the case?” Grassley asked Boente about the now 14-month-long investigation.

“Please explain why FCPD refuses to disclose even basic information concerning this case,” Grassley wrote to the police chief.

Roessler said he could not comment on the letter or say whether he would respond. Boente’s spokesman, Joshua Stueve, said that the Justice Department’s Legislative Affairs Office handles all correspondence from congressional officials and that he could not discuss the case.

On the day he was shot, Geer, 46, was standing unarmed in the doorway of his Springfield townhouse, his arms on the frame of the storm door, and talking to Fairfax officers after tossing his longtime partner’s belongings out of the house upon learning she was moving out. Witnesses, including his father and his best friend, said that after about 50 minutes, an officer suddenly fired one shot into Geer’s chest from a distance of 10 to 20 feet, with no apparent provocation.

Geer turned, closed the door and collapsed, witnesses said. Police waited another hour, while calling to him to respond, before knocking down the door. By then, Geer had bled to death.

Following department policy, police declined to reveal the name of the officer or any details of why he fired until the Fairfax prosecutor ruled on whether a crime had been committed. But after five months, during which Fairfax prosecutor Raymond F. Morrogh reportedly tried and failed to obtain the internal affairs files from previous cases in which the officer was involved, Morrogh shifted the case in February to the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria for federal investigation. That office has not offered any details on the case in the nine months since.

Grassley has been the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and is expected to be named chairman with the Republican takeover of the Senate. The committee has oversight of the Justice Department and its U.S. attorneys.

Grassley said he sent the letters because the Geer case “has received little attention, except in The Washington Post, and at least the known facts are concerning. It’s unacceptable for the U.S. attorney and the police department to leave a case like this languishing for so long, keeping Geer’s family and the public in the dark.”

Geer’s father, Don Geer, said of the letters, “I thought he did a wonderful job. I wish he’d done it a year ago. He certainly has asked the right questions.”

Don Geer said he has heard “not a word” from federal authorities “for a long, long time.” In September, Geer’s former partner, Maura Harrington, filed a wrongful death civil suit against the Fairfax police in hopes of learning more information about why Geer was shot.

Supervisor Gerry Hyland said nothing and did nothing when the Fairfax County cops framed a grammer school teacher and murdered two unarmed citizens….and got away with it ……Opps Deary Hyland is the cops loudest supporter.

SOMEBODY PLEASE run against this coward. He’s beatable.

The people of Fairfax County are sick and tired of the cops murdering unarmed citizens.

Don’t worry, Opps Dearie Hyland will probably run into the closet to get his things and then not come out of the closet. He’s beatable.

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.