Fairfax County Police Watch: Baker threatened to “disappear” Leon Infante, a resident who admitted to obtaining property stolen from the cop’s personal vehicle.

King City cop pleads no contest to false imprisonment

Allison Gatlin,

A King City police sergeant pleaded no contest to false imprisonment Wednesday, a week before he was scheduled to go to trial.

Sgt. Mark Baker offered his plea in Monterey County Superior Court. The plea effectively ended the policing career of the 17-year law enforcement veteran.

On Aug. 23, 2013, Baker threatened to “disappear” Leon Infante, a resident who admitted to obtaining property stolen from the cop’s personal vehicle.

The threat was entirely uncharacteristic of Baker, said Thomas Worthington, his attorney.

“He has a lifetime of being an even-tempered person,” Worthington told The Californian.

Being a gang officer, Baker experienced numerous threats and near constant concern for his family. Those worries were especially acute on Aug. 23, 2013, after his vehicle — which contained a gate key to his house — was stolen.

“Otherwise he wouldn’t have acted like that,” Worthington said.

Baker was initially scheduled for a plea change Nov. 26, but didn’t follow through.

Over the week, Worthington said he reviewed the case and interviewed witnesses, one of whom credits Baker for his life. Baker was scheduled for trial on Monday.

“Mark and we felt like it was a good time to put an end on this,” Worthington said. He called the misdemeanor plea agreement “reasonable.” Initially, Baker faced felony criminal theft charges and a much heftier sentence.

He is scheduled to be sentenced March 18 to five years’ probation. Per probation requirements, he won’t be allowed to own any firearms. He’ll have to turn over any he has to an authorized gun dealer by next Wednesday.

Doing so effectively ends Baker’s policing career. Baker has been on leave from the King City Police Department since shortly following the incident last year.

Worthington said his client is now trying to deal with the “burnout” following the high stress of police work, especially in the gang realm.

Baker has had no citizen complaints for force sustained against him, Worthington said. His discipline record is minimal and only includes a letter of record for backing over a rock at night, damaging a patrol car.

Until his sentencing, Baker remains out of custody on his own recognizance.

In other news, the trial date for King City Police Sgt. Bobby Carrillo, Interim Chief Bruce Miller and Brian Miller, Bruce Miller’s brother and owner of Miller’s Towing, was vacated.

The trio were scheduled for trial Jan. 26. However, Judge Russell Scott — who had been overseeing their case — is retiring effective the end of this year. Their case was transferred instead of Judge Julie Culver. Culver, however, said Wednesday she expects to be fairly busy in late January.

Instead, Carrillo, Bruce Miller and Brian Miller will return to court Jan. 27 to have a new date set for trial.

Carrillo and Brian Miller are accused of orchestrating a for-profit car-towing scheme to defraud low-income Latinos. Bruce Miller is accused of accepting a vehicle as a bribe.

Culver will take up a motion to dismiss one of the charges against Bruce Miller on Jan. 22. He’s charged specifically with bribery and perjury.

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.