Fairfax County Police Watch: Jones to show council videos that got officer suspended

By Rachel Molenda, Staff writer

Tonight, Charleston City Council members will see the videos that got a Charleston police officer suspended, Mayor Danny Jones said.But members of the public won’t see the videos, which were allegedly taken from Lt. Shawn Williams’ personal computer. Instead, council members will view them behind closed doors.Sources have told the Gazette that the videos show Williams’ young daughter dressed in what appear to be articles of a police uniform and dancing to an anthem of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sources have also told the Gazette that Police Chief Brent Webster recommended that Williams be fired.Jones said he wants to show council members the videos because a council member is advocating on Williams’ behalf.“He’s got one strong advocate on council, who’s lobbying for him, and I think that they need to see exactly what’s going on,” Jones told the Gazette.Jones said there were seven short videos obtained by the police department.“Someday you’ll see those tapes, and they’re not very pretty,” the mayor said during a meeting last week between police officers and clergy about race and community relations.Williams was suspended pending an investigation by the department’s personal conduct division that was triggered by an internal complaint. Webster has not commented on the investigation because of personnel laws.Jones said Williams has made “some very serious allegations against the police department,” referring to a television interview Williams did in November with WCHS-TV.In the interview, asked if he thought the investigation was political, Williams answered, “Without a doubt.”“I was contacted back in the spring and summer by some City Council people that thought the department needed to go in a different direction,” Williams said.Williams also said Jones told his lawyer that he needed to listen to reason or Jones would release the tapes to a local news station.The suspended officer said the police department is likely using the investigation “as a tool that, ‘We’re not going to tolerate racism in the Charleston Police Department.’ Well, if you think that this is the first and only incident of racism in the Charleston Police Department, people, I guess ‘Stand by,’ ” Williams said.“If everybody on council rises up and supports Shawn Williams, that’s their business,” Jones said. “It’s a significant case and a significant issue, and he’s made some allegations against our police department that I don’t think are fair.”City Council meets at tonight at 7 in City Hall.Reach Rachel Molenda - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141215/GZ01/141219575/1101#sthash.DiOfzxOO.dpuf

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.