Fairfax County Police Watch: Dalton Police officer arrested for child molestation

A Dalton Police Department officer arrested for child molestation was placed on administrative leave nine days ago after allegations surfaced and is expected to be fired.

Daniel Harrison Tolbert, 32, was arrested today and booked into the Whitfield County jail.

Tolbert was placed on administrative leave “immediately after being informed by the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) that he was being investigated on suspicion of child molestation,” according to a press release from the Dalton Police Department.

While Tolbert is currently on administrative leave, the city will begin the process of his termination immediately.

“I am very disappointed to hear about this allegation, and upset about the discredit this will surely bring on our department, and officers,” Dalton Police Chief Jason Parker said in the press release. “We would never condone or support the kind of behavior that would warrant this charge ... the men and women of this department hold ourselves to a very high standard of behavior, and we know the community we serve expects our behavior to be beyond reproach.”

Tolbert has served the Dalton Police Department for three months after completing the police academy in September. He was sworn in on Sept. 16. At the time of his suspension, Tolbert was still in the department’s field training program. Because of his status as a trainee, Tolbert was never unsupervised or alone while on duty as a Dalton officer. Probationary trainees ride with an experienced training officer for three phases of field training for at least four months after completing the police academy.

Tolbert is a native of Fayetteville, where he graduated from Lovejoy High School, according to information on the Dalton Police Department blog. Tolbert continued his education, graduating in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Fort Valley State University. In 2012, he received a master’s degree in criminal justice from Georgia College and State University.

Before Tolbert joined the Dalton Police Department, he had a law enforcement background. He worked for the U.S. Border Patrol in California and was a jail deputy with the Clayton County Sheriff's Office. Tolbert served in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2008.

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.