Fairfax County Police Watch: Convicted former cop admits heroin addiction during arrest

By Kiran Chawla

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -

A former narcotics officer with the Baton Rouge Police Department has been arrested for unauthorized use of a vehicle and crime against the elderly. This arrest comes just four months after being released from prison after he was convicted in 2012 for stealing more than $27,000 from drug investigation evidence.

In April of 2011, evidence from more than half a dozen Baton Rouge drug cases went missing. Officer Michael Thompson was busted for stealing around $27,000 from drug investigations. He told investigators that he stole the money because he was addicted to pain medication and was using the money to buy pills.

Thompson was arrested and charged with malfeasance in office and seven counts of felony theft.

At the time of his first arrest, he had been with the Baton Rouge Police Department for five years. Officials with BRPD say Thompson was fired before he was taken into custody.

In October 2011, a grand jury indicted Thompson on 16 counts of felony theft.

In November 2012, Thompson was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $27,065 in restitution to the city of Baton Rouge. He was also sentenced to be on active supervised probation for three years following his release from prison. The sentence was part of Thompson's negotiated plea agreement.

He pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft that encompassed all of his criminal conduct.

Also during the investigation, it was revealed that several cases had to be dismissed because the evidence was missing.

Thompson was released from jail on July 13, 2014 and was to begin his active supervised probation that would last until 2017.

The former BRPD Narcotics Officer was arrested Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 and charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and crime against the elderly.

"We got a call that he actually took his father's car and apparently without permission, drove to his mom's residence," said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely with BRPD.

According to the arrest report, Thompson sat on his father while he was sitting on the couch and took his car keys from his pocket without permission. Thompson's father told officers his son has a drug problem and wants him arrested so he can be forced to seek help.

Thompson was found in the vehicle in the 200 block of Little John in the vehicle, but his mother was driving him back to his father's house.

Reports say Thompson admitted he did take the keys without permission, but he took them from the coffee table and not from his father's pocket. He told police he took the vehicle because he needed to go see his mother for a problem. Then Thompson also reportedly admitted he is addicted to heroin.

"It's an unfortunate thing, but it's sad to say, it's not uncommon," said Cpl. McKneely. "There are a lot of people out here who are addicted to prescription drugs. They are ruining their families, and their families are seeking to get them help."

Thompson was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. No bond has been set at the time of this report.

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.