Fairfax County Police Watch: Not so transparent

George Nilson

Plan to post police brutality lawsuits online doesn't go far enough

A Baltimore City plan to create an online database listing the outcome of civil lawsuits alleging police brutality is being billed as a tool for making the department more transparent after a Sun investigation this summer revealed the city has paid out nearly $6 million to settle plaintiffs' claims of misconduct by officers. Baltimore City Solicitor George Nilson, who devised the new policy, said posting the information online will dispel any impression the city is trying to hide officers' misconduct from the public. But though the database clearly is a step in the direction of reform, we have doubts that it will deliver sufficiently on that promise.

The city frequently settles complaints of police brutality out of court — typically by agreeing to pay only a fraction of the damages alleged — rather than take such cases to trial. It costs the city less to resolve cases through settlements and doesn't require it to admit wrongdoing by officers. Moreover, settlement agreements routinely contain so-called non-disclosure clauses, which prevent plaintiffs who receive an award from talking about it publicly. Plaintiffs who violate that restriction risk losing their monetary payment.

Mr. Nilson says the city will consider changing the requirement that plaintiffs remain silent after a settlement is reached, but there's no guarantee it will actually do so. The most he's willing to offer is a review of "best practices" in other cities to determine whether Baltimore's policy should change. That's not much of a commitment.

Moreover, while lawsuits against the police will be available online, the posts may not include details about the specific instances of brutality or misconduct alleged. That's no better than what we have now with the brief summaries currently given the city's Board of Estimates, which must approve all payments larger than $25,000. Critics charge that in the past such summaries have been used to hide the nature and extent of alleged abuses, leaving the public and other city officials in the dark about how widespread the problem is or whether the same officers are responsible for multiple complaints of misconduct.

The more fundamental problem with just posting lawsuits against police online is that such information contains no independent findings of fact. That's because when city settles a case it doesn't necessarily concede the truthfulness of the allegations. All the public sees is that the city decided to resolve the case out of court rather than take it to trial. But there's no way of knowing why it did so or whether the outcome resulted in any disciplinary action being taken against the officers involved. Posting complaints online may give the public an easier way to tote up how much the city is paying out, but without an independent body to investigate such complaints the public still won't know much more that it does today about the nature of the abuses being litigated.

That's why if the police department is to be truly transparent, the city must establish an independent citizen review board with real powers to investigate complaints of police misconduct and compel the department to discipline officers who abuse their powers. New York City currently has such a panel, staffed by 100 civilian investigators and other employers who can take citizen complaints, locate witnesses and gather sworn testimony from officers implicated in misconduct. It's a far more effective body than Baltimore's toothless citizen review panel, which can't even begin its work until after the police department has finished investigating itself.

What city residents want to see is a recognition by top officials that police officers are accountable to the public they serve, that no officer is above the law and that the department stands ready to discipline the wrong-doers in its own ranks. The department needs to show it can police itself before it can win the confidence of those it is sworn to protect. Mr. Nilson's plan is a welcome reform as far as it goes, but it doesn't do nearly enough to make the department truly transparent and accountable.

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.