Fairfax County Police Watch: New charges against South Bend officer to be suspended, demoted for lying

Kelli Stopczynski

SOUTH BEND -

An embattled South Bend Police officer is once again under the microscope. This time, Officer Jack Stilp's lawyer says it's for refusing to testify during a recent hearing in front of the Board of Public Safety.

It all started earlier this year when Police Chief Ron Teachman accused Stilp of lying on a police report and claiming a woman Stilp and another officer were sent to arrest on a warrant wasn't home, when she really was.

The board decided Wednesday Stilp violated the duty manual on that call and because of it, decided he’ll serve a 90 day, unpaid suspension and a 6 month demotion.

“These violations of the duty manual are serious in nature and implicate the integrity of the officer,” said Board of Public Safety President Laura Vasquez.

However, the board decided in a 3-2 vote the violations were not serious enough for Stilp to lose his job – something Teachman asked the board to consider.

“We’re talking about due process here,” Stilp’s lawyer, Douglas Grimes, told the board during the public comment period.

According to Grimes, he and Stilp were “prepared to accept” the suspension and temporary demotion, but they also said there’s a clear conflict of interest in the case because the board decided dates of the suspension and demotion would be determined by Teachman.

It’s unfair for Teachman to make that decision, Grimes said, because while Stilp waits for a different hearing, he’s allowed to be on administrative leave with pay.

The new allegation against Stilp stems from his testimony during his initial disciplinary hearing in October when Stilp refused to testify to the board under oath – citing his Fifth Amendment rights, Grimes said.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” the attorney continued. “They admit that he has a right to claim the Fifth Amendment privilege under the Constitution in an administrative hearing and that's what he did. Now they want to come back and charge him for having done so, which they admit that he had a right to do.”

That issue’s been set for hearing in front of the board in February.

WSBT 22 requested documentation from the city Wednesday through the Access to Public Records Act to confirm the new charges and see what discipline is recommended for Stilp this time. That request had not been fulfilled as of 4:30 p.m.

Meantime, the board is considering Stilp’s request to have the board make the suspension decision.

This is not the first time Stilp’s been in trouble. Former Interim Police Chief Chuck Hurley asked the board to fire Stilp in 2012 after Stilp talked to a local TV station and released an internal police document without permission.

Stilp went through a hearing for that and the board suspended him 5 days even though Hurley requested a 10 day suspension.

When asked by WSBT 22 if he feels as though Stilp has a target on his back, Grimes said he cannot address that.

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.