Fairfax County Police Watch: Paid vacation for cop arrested for stealing

Palisades Park police officer charged in theft to be paid while suspended

BY MONSY ALVARADO

PALISADES PARK — A police sergeant who was charged with theft by deception and forgery earlier this month will be paid while on suspension, Mayor James Rotundo said Thursday.

Sgt. Marc Messing, an 11-year police veteran, was suspended on Jan. 6 after an internal affairs investigation was conducted that led to the charges. Messing’s base salary was $119,706 in 2014.

A day after Messing was suspended Police Chief Ben Ramos said it was up to the mayor and council to decide if Messing would be paid while suspended. But on Thursday, Rotundo said the initial decision to pay Messing was made by the chief, and that in the past under similar circumstances the borough has always initially suspended with pay. He said the mayor and council would decide later if a change was in order.

“Until we had a better handle on exactly what was going on and whether it was serious enough to then change it to suspension without pay,’’ he said. “And we haven’t been given any of that yet.’’

Rotundo said the case has been transferred over to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. John Molinelli, the prosecutor, said the case was not transferred to his office for investigation, but he said the complaint was probably sent to the office like all other municipal arrests that must go through screening and prosecution.

Messing, the son of Councilwoman Cynthia Pirrera, is being represented by Hackensack attorney Robert Galantucci, who said earlier this week that his client has not had a court appearance. A court date had not been set as of Thursday, according to an employee at Bergen County Superior Court.

Messing is alleged to have altered a $1,000 check written to the municipality and deposited the funds into his personal account, according to a complaint summons. The summons stated that Messing altered a check paid to the municipality by High Point Utilities by adding a “slash and the name of Marc Messing” on the payer line. Messing, the complaint summons stated, then deposited the check in a personal account.

Messing was sworn as a police officer in 2003. He grew up in the borough and has served as an emergency medical technician on the ambulance corps, and previously as a special police officer and traffic officer.

Gerry Hyland killed police oversight after the cops gunned down unarmed citizens...you elected him now toss him out.,

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.