Fairfax County Police Watch: Editorial: Not the First or Only Time

Secrecy around police shootings has been a problem for at least a decade.

By Mary Kimm

The official position of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on the need for changes in policy after the shooting of John Geer by police in Springfield in August of 2013 appears to be that this is the first time police policies have been a problem:

“Policies for handling police-involved incidents, which served us well for decades, were inadequate in this complicated situation.”

Police-involved shootings have resulted in excruciating obfuscation and delay by Fairfax County Police dating back more than a decade. In this editorial, we refer to two high-profile cases, but these are not the only cases where police secrecy had caused incalculable pain to families while damaging the credibility of the police and other county officials. And this issue is not limited to Fairfax County. Alexandria and Arlington use similar approaches to limit public access to information.

Most Northern Virginia residents think very highly of their police. We are very safe here. People understand that sometimes mistakes happen, that sometimes force is needed, and that sometimes police will exercise deadly force. What they are unlikely to accept is secrecy that shrouds mistakes, and failure to take responsibility for explaining events of deadly force.

We’ll quote the father of David Masters who wrote a letter to the Mount Vernon Gazette (a Connection Newspaper) in June, 2013, two months before John Geer was shot:

“I am the father of David Masters. David was shot to death by a Fairfax County police officer on Nov. 13, 2009 while sitting in his truck at a stop at the intersection of Route 1 and Fort Hunt Road. I don’t know any more about the circumstances of this grim fatality now than I did then and now, as then, the records of this tragedy are not available to anyone outside the police department. The officer who shot my son was ultimately and I must say secretly fired by the then police chief, David Rohrer. But even that was done without any admission of culpability by anyone in the county. … I don’t understand why the Virginia Freedom of Information Act gives blanket exemption to police matters. ... As it is now, the police department can, and seemingly does, operate in a culture of complete autonomy without fear that its actions will be held up to any kind of scrutiny.”

The Connection reported in 2006 about the accidental shooting of an unarmed Salvatore J. "Sal" Culosi Jr. during his arrest on gambling charges:

“With red-rimmed eyes and her voice cracking, Anita Culosi expressed outrage Thursday evening [March 30, 2006] that a Fairfax County police officer will not be charged with a crime for accidentally killing her 37-year-old son. ‘My son is laying in a cemetery,’ she said, surrounded by family members holding framed pictures of her son. “That man pulled a trigger and shot my son dead.’"

Anita Culosi's son, Salvatore J. "Sal" Culosi Jr., was accidentally shot to death by a Fairfax County SWAT team officer on Jan. 24 outside his Fair Oaks townhouse. He had been under investigation for illegal sports gambling for the previous three months, accepting at least $28,000 in bets from an undercover Fairfax County detective.

In July, 2012, more than a year before John Geer was shot and killed, a group of citizens identified four cases, including Masters and Culosi, where police secrecy continued to block questions about shooting deaths. Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability characterized “questionable circumstances” around the shootings, noted that no one, including the families of the deceased victims, had been able to obtain a police incident report despite the fact that the four cases are closed.

CCPA Executive Director Nicholas Beltrante sent letters asking for the release of documents, “to find out what happened in the shooting deaths, why deadly force was used instead of a taser gun or beanbag gun, and to find out if police misconduct took place.”

Beltrante said: “Our letters will highlight to the public the importance of amending the Virginia FOIA to require the release of police incident reports, and the value of improving police accountability by creating an independent police citizen oversight panel made up of Fairfax county citizens …. Unnecessary use of deadly force by the police, if it is occurring, will undermine the integrity and confidence of the public in our police and our elected officials.”

The revelations about the shooting of John Geer as a result of a civil lawsuit seriously undermine the credibility of the investigation process.

Aside from the officer who shot Geer, four other officers on the scene told investigators that same day that they were shocked by the shot that killed Geer and thought the shooting was unnecessary. (One officer described his first reaction: “WTF.”) There was no weapon in view, although Geer was a gun owner and had a holstered gun nearby. Geer made great effort to be predictable in his actions, asking permission to scratch his nose, otherwise keeping his hands up on the doorframe.

But a day after the shooting, police released the following update:

“The preliminary investigation indicates that when officers arrived on the scene, they were met by an individual who displayed what appeared to be a weapon in a threatening manner and was subsequently shot.”

And last month, before the statements of the other officers were released, the police released this update with the name of the officer:

“Geer was reported as having multiple firearms inside the home, displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police, and refused the officers’ requests that he remain outside and speak to them. Officers, including a trained negotiator, attempted to peaceably resolve the situation. They spoke with Geer for more than 30 minutes as he stood in the doorway of his home. When Geer began lowering his hands at one point during the negotiations, PFC Adam Torres fired a single shot that struck Geer.”

But investigators knew that the negotiator had not seen Geer holding a weapon.

We don’t agree with this statement by Bulova: “The Board of Supervisors has taken the steps needed to ensure its policies allow for justice to be fairly and swiftly served.”

This is not an isolated case. The Board of Supervisors must demand transparency from the police.

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.