Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax County police shot an unarmed man in his home and they won’t say why

By Editorial Board

WHEN WILL Fairfax County and federal authorities stop stonewalling in the 2013 death of John Geer, an unarmed man shot at point-blank range by police as he stood in the doorway of his home?

How is it possible that 15 months after he was shot in the chest and left to bleed to death in his home , the authorities have neither disclosed the name of the county police officer who fired the deadly shot nor provided even the bare bones of an explanation for the shooting?

Are the Fairfax County police incapable of matching even the imperfect transparency and accountability of the police in Ferguson, Mo., where Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager? Was the Fairfax police chief, Edwin C. Roessler Jr., even remotely sincere when he promised to “hold myself accountable” to Mr. Geer’s family?

And what about the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana J. Boente, to whom the case was handed by county prosecutors in February? Why has Mr. Boente, whose office has conducted at least preliminary interviews, been mum? Is he pursuing the case? If so, what is taking so long? If not, has he dropped it? And if he dropped it, why?

Will Mr. Boente not answer any of these questions even after they were posed to him, in a Nov. 13 letter, by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who will soon become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Are U.S. Attorneys accountable to no one? Does the fact that Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors hired a high-powered Washington lawyer to represent it in the case mean that the board has abdicated its responsibility to press police for a truthful accounting of the facts?

And by the way, what are the unspecified conflicts of interest that caused county prosecutors to punt the case to the feds?

What in the world is going on here? At least two other police officers witnessed the shooting at close range; are their accounts to remain hidden indefinitely? What accounts did other witnesses to the shooting, who include friends and neighbors, give to the authorities?

Has anyone contradicted the accounts of witnesses who told journalists that while Mr. Geer had been drinking and was distraught that his longtime girlfriend was moving out, he brandished no weapons and posed no threat to the police or to public order?

Following the shooting, why was Mr. Geer allowed to bleed to death inside his home? Why did police and emergency personnel leave his body unattended for an hour? Could prompt medical attention have saved his life?

Does the officer who fired the fatal shot remain on the county police force with full pay? Will he or anyone be held accountable for the shooting of Mr. Geer?

How much longer will the stonewalling in Fairfax go on?

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.