Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax County Judge Orders More John Geer Materials Released

Family’s lawyer’s motions supported.

By Tim Peterson

Though extensive, the thousands of pages of documents, dozens of audio files and handful of videos released last month by Fairfax County, documenting the shooting death of Springfield resident John Geer, aren’t exhaustive.

On Feb. 6, Michael Lieberman, the lawyer representing Geer’s family and partner Maura Harrington, brought several motions to Fairfax County Circuit Court, compelling the county to produce additional materials.

Geer was shot by Fairfax County Police Officer PFC Adam Torres Aug. 29, 2013, while he stood in the doorway of his home with hands raised. The county’s Jan. 30 public release includes documentation of the initial internal criminal investigation of the incident by the Fairfax County Police Department.

Judge Randy I. Bellows granted some of Lieberman’s requests and deferred the one for Torres’ closed Internal Affairs personnel file.

“What did county know, when did they know it and what did they do about it?” said Lieberman, who first filed a $12 million civil suit in December 2014 against FCPD Police Chief Edwin C Roessler and unknown officers who were involved with the incident.

Lieberman is seeking “factual and evaluative” information regarding another incident, when Torres reportedly had an outburst with Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Charles Peters in a courtroom, in March 2013. The county has a Feb. 20 deadline to produce that investigation file.

Since Lieberman’s suit was filed before Fairfax County released the name of Geer’s shooter, he is also planning to amend the initial complaint, adding Torres’ name and names of the FCPD supervisors who were on the scene and assisted remotely.

Bellows’ ruling favors Lieberman’s request for release of those other officers’ information, and gives Lieberman until March 6 to file an amendment to the complaint.

In an interview, Lieberman said this case has “very similar attributes” to the 2006 death of Salvatore J Culosi, with which he was also involved. Culosi was killed by another FCPD officer in front of his Fair Lakes area townhouse.

Lieberman said “through expert testimony and through a test of the police department officer who shot Dr. Culosi,” it was clear the officers were violating rules of weapon control, including pointing at people without imminent danger.

In addition to his other discovery requests, the lawyer wants to know if Fairfax County has made an effort to retrain officers since the Culosi killing.

“From our mind, the county should’ve been on notice,” Lieberman said. “You have a problem: No one’s doing it. That’s called a custom. It was a problem in 2006 and surely was a problem in 2013. Maybe it was all avoidable if they had just done something different. Maybe Mr. Geer would be alive today.”

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.