Fairfax County Police Watch: Cop arrested, accused of criminal sexual penetration

By Regina Ruiz

MILAN, N.M. —A local police officer is facing serious charges after a night of drinking over Christmas took a disturbing turn, according to investigators.

Milan police Officer James Watters, 25, is accused of getting an underage woman drunk and forcing her to perform oral sex. The officer's mother swears her son is innocent.

"He goes, 'I promise, I promise.' He goes, 'This is my life, this is my job.' I don't know, I don't know what to think. This isn't James," Angela Hedrick said. "A part of me wants to have so much faith in James, but then something happened because why would he be in there?"

According to New Mexico State Police agents, it all happened Christmas Eve.

Watters, Grants Police Sgt. Jessie Nieto and Jessie Terrazaz -- a former court security officer for the Cibola County Sheriff's Department -- picked up a 20-year-old woman.

All four allegedly drove to Grants High School and drank alcohol.

The victim told investigators the men kept asking her to perform oral sex or possibly have a threesome or foursome. She told the men she didn't want to do it.

Agents said that at one point the word rape was used and that's when Nieto asked to be taken home. They dropped him off, but investigators said the night didn't end there.

According to the statement of probable cause, the victim told police she was brought to the New Mexico State University Grants Campus, she was given more alcohol and told police she was sexually assaulted.

Investigators said Terrazaz made the woman sexually touch him and Watters then forced her to perform oral sex on him.

Both men spent Christmas Day giving their side of the story to state police and both ended up behind bars.

"I honestly feel that my son didn't do it. But, only time will tell. The truth will come out. That's what I am waiting for," Hedrick said.

Watters has been with the Milan Police Department for about five months. His mother tells Action 7 News before that he was a firefighter for about four years and has three small children.

As of Friday night, Watters was still behind bars.

The Cibola County Sheriff's Department said Terrazaz was fired from the department years ago for misconduct. It was related to a domestic violence incident.

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.