Fairfax County Police Watch: The national problem of mentally unstable cops

Chicago Officer Accused of Torturing Black Men Is Released From Prison

Ga. Sheriff’s Deputy Fired After Allegedly Handcuffing Child to Pole and Beating Him

Lipscomb cop fired after handcuffing, Macing fellow officer in front of shocked mayor

Chicago Officer Accused of Torturing Black Men Is Released From Prison

Jon Burge was transferred to a Florida halfway house Thursday.

By: Lynette Holloway

A former Chicago police commander who was accused of burning and beating more than 100 black men into making false confessions has been released from federal prison after spending less than four years behind bars, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Jon Burge was transferred to a Florida halfway house Thursday, the report says. Burge and the detectives he supervised terrorized the city’s mainly black South Side throughout the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, according to the report. He reportedly forced scores into making false confessions.

But after the expiration of the statute of limitations for his alleged crimes, Burge was convicted of perjury in 2010 on a charge of lying about police torture, the report says. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on the perjury conviction.

On Thursday Anthony Holmes, one of Burge’s victims, stood at Chicago’s City Hall and recounted the pain he endured under Burge’s crew. He told reporters of being arrested in 1973 and taken to a police station where detectives hooked him up to an electrical box and put a bag over his head, the Tribune reports. Holmes said that officers shocked him repeatedly until he confessed to a murder he did not commit. The nearly 70-year-old Holmes recalled Burge calling him the n-word and warning him against biting through the bag over his head, the Tribune reports.

Ga. Sheriff’s Deputy Fired After Allegedly Handcuffing Child to Pole and Beating Him

Alton Walter has since been fired from his position, and investigators have obtained arrest warrants on charges of false imprisonment and cruelty to children.

By: Breanna Edwards

A sheriff’s deputy from Richmond County, Ga., is facing felony charges of false imprisonment and cruelty to children in the first degree after he allegedly handcuffed a 12-year-old to a basketball post and beat him, WRDW reports.

Deputy Alton Walker, who has since been fired, reportedly went to a friend’s house to discipline an “unruly” 12-year-old boy, the news station notes. While there, Walker, who was off-duty and not in uniform at the time, allegedly hit the child multiple times in the face with his hands and also punched him in the stomach. In addition, Walker allegedly threatened to use a Taser on the young boy.

The mother of the child said that she wasn’t home at the time of the incident and had merely wanted Walker to talk to her child, not beat him.

According to WRDW, a witness on the scene heard the child crying and looked over a fence to see Walker punching the boy with his fist and, in fact, tasing him. The witness also claimed that Walker used his baton on the boy.

After the incident, investigators got arrest warrants for the now-former deputy. He was terminated from the sheriff’s office immediately. The investigation into the incident is ongoing, according to the news station.

Lipscomb cop fired after handcuffing, Macing fellow officer in front of shocked mayor

By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com

A Lipscomb police officer has been fired after city officials say he handcuffed and used pepper spray on a fellow Lipscomb police officer.

Officer Warren Powe, who has previously been fired from the Lipscomb force and reinstated, was let go this week. Lipscomb police Chief Warren Carey said Powe was fired for conduct unbecoming a police officer and use of excessive force.

The firing stemmed from a bizarre incident that happened in the early morning hours of Jan. 26, all while a shocked Lipscomb Mayor Lance McDade looked on. The ordeal began about 6:30 a.m. that Monday when Officer William Henry Bynum was involved in an accident in his police cruiser.

Mayor Lance McDade previously told AL.com that a motorist pulled out in front of the officer and caused the one-vehicle wreck. Because a city vehicle was involved, McDade went to the scene. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office also responded to work the wreck, the mayor said.

Officer Powe then showed up at the accident scene and began to take pictures, though McDade said he didn't know why Powe was there. McDade said Bynum told him he thought it was the law that he be drug tested following his wreck, so the mayor told the officer to get into his car and he would drive him to UAB West for the test. McDade said there is no city policy requiring a drug test and he later learned there is no law requiring one either. "It was better to be safe than sorry,'' the mayor said in an earlier interview.

As the mayor and Bynum were en route to the hospital, Powe, with lights and sirens on, pulled them over on Avenue G at 14th Street. McDade said he got out of his vehicle and asked Powe if there was a problem. "Powe said you can't take him from the scene,'' the mayor said. "I told him Jefferson County had already cleared the scene, and I am his boss."

At that point, Bynum heard the two arguing and got out of the mayor's vehicle as well. Powe then asked Bynum, his fellow officer, if he was wearing his duty belt and was told he was not. "He kept asking him if he had any weapons,'' the mayor said. "There was no need for him to ask that either."

Bynum, authorities said, had his hands in his pockets because it was cold. It was then that Powe went after Bynum. "Powe lunged at Bynum and told him he was under arrest and Maced him,'' the mayor said. "He got on his back and handcuffed him. It was crazy."

"He ignored me as his supervisor and put him in his vehicle,'' McDade said. Once back at the police department, they washed out Bynum's eyes and then called paramedics to take him to the hospital. Sheriff's deputies were called to the hospital to take a report from Bynum, but sheriff's officials referred all questions about the incident to Lipscomb police.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case. Bynum is on paid leave while the police chief says they are still conducting internal investigations.

Efforts to reach Powe for comment were unsuccessful, but Carey said Powe is appealing his firing to the Lipscomb Personnel Board. Lipscomb is not part of the Jefferson County merit system.

Powe pulled over the mayor last year on a traffic violation. McDade was found guilty of attempting to elude him. Powe, also a former Lipscomb police chief, had previously filed a lawsuit against McDade and other city officials after he was he was fired in 2013. A personnel board later reinstated Powe and the lawsuit was dismissed when a settlement was reached.

Lipscomb officials have been somewhat tightlipped about the situation. The mayor has said he doesn't know of any previous problems between Bynum and Powe, two of only 10 officers on the force. "It's caused a good ripple there,'' he said previously. "We've got a situation going on and we're trying to keep morale up. It's a challenge

The Chicago police riot 1968 at the Democratic convention

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.