Fairfax County Police Watch: Former New Mexico cop sentenced to 90 days behind bars for fatal crash

Adam Casaus, a 12-year veteran of the Albuquerque Police Department, will serve the maximum sentence for misdemeanor careless driving that led to the death of 21-year-old Ashley Browder. He sped through an intersection in a police SUV, killing the Air National Guard member and injuring her younger sister.

BY RACHELLE BLIDNER

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A former New Mexico police officer whose careless driving killed a 21-year-old Air National Guard member was sentenced to 90 days in jail Friday.

Adam Casaus will serve the maximum sentence and pay a fine of $300 after a jury found him guilty of two counts of careless driving in September.

Casaus ran a red light while behind the wheel of an Albuquerque Police Department SUV Feb. 10, 2013, investigators said. His car slammed into a white Honda CRV, killing passenger Ashley Browder, and injuring driver and sister Lindsay Browder, then 19.

In September, Casaus was cleared of charges of vehicular homicide and reckless driving, felonies that could have thrown him behind bars for up to nine years, according to KRQE News 13.

Prosecutors and Browder's family said they were disappointed and angered that Casaus was charged with only a misdemeanor for Ashley Browder's death. The family asked Judge Richard Knowles to sentence the former cop to the maximum sentence.

"Adam Casaus has given us a life sentence without Ashley, a life sentence of mental and physical pain for Lindsay, and life sentence of grief and sorrow for her father and mother," Chuck Browder, Ashley and Lindsay Browder's father, told the court Friday.

Casaus apologized to Browder's family, saying he is "grieving" with them.

"If there was a way I could switch places with Ashley Browder right now, I would," Casaus said.

He told the court he was speeding to chase after a car driving recklessly, but investigators said there is no evidence of that claim.

The former sergeant testified that he drove through a green light on Paseo del Norte, not a red one, the first time he has claimed so in trial.

Casaus requested to serve his 90 days in house arrest but was denied. He will spend his jail sentence in protective custody at Metropolitan Detention Center, according to KOAT 7.

The 12-year veteran of the police department lost his job and his law enforcement certification months after the accident, the Albuquerque Journal reported. He will not get his job back after serving his sentence.

Browder's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Casaus and the police department.

Ashley Browder served in the Nevada National Guard for three years before moving to Albuquerque with her sister two months before the collision.

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.