Fairfax County Police Watch: vampires investigate theft at bloodbank

Police Evaluate Natasha McKenna's In-Custody Death for Criminal Violations

By Jackie Bensen

Fairfax County Police are investigating the death of a 37-year-old inmate who was placed on life support and later died after being Tased by deputies. News4's Jackie Bensen reports.

Fairfax County Police are investigating the death of a 37-year-old inmate who was placed on life support and later died after being Tased by deputies.

Natasha McKenna was seen at a Hertz Rental car location on Pickett Street on Jan. 15, where employees said she was being disruptive and acting strangely, police said. She ran from police, who found her in a Home Depot. McKenna ran again, police said.

More police responded and caught McKenna. Police said she resisted their attempts to arrest her, including punching one officer and trying to bite them. Police said they put her in a "hobble restraint device" to restrict her movements and a "spit sock" to prevent biting.

McKenna was hospitalized at INOVA Alexandria Hospital, where she remained until she was arrested Jan. 26 and charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer.

Inmate Dies While In Custody of Fairfax County Police

An inmate was pulled off life support Sunday after she had a medical emergency at the Fairfax County Detention Center. (Published Sunday, Feb 8, 2015)

McKenna was in the process of being transported from the Fairfax County jail to the Alexandria city jail Feb. 3 when deputies say she failed to comply with their commands and resisted them. A deputy then used a Taser multiple times to restrain her.

After being stunned, Elbert said a medic checked on and cleared McKenna, and that she was then moved to another area of the jail, where she began experiencing a medical emergency. Deputies and medical staff began life-saving measures before McKenna was taken to a hospital and put on life support.

Elbert said minutes passed between when McKenna was stunned and her medical emergency but didn't know how many. "It was not an immediate thing,'' he said.

"Based on the family pictures, bruising on the arm, two black eyes, a missing finger ... I mean, this was a violent exchange," advocate for the mentally ill Peter Earley said.

Elbert declined to say how many times the deputy stunned McKenna and where on her body she was hit. He also declined to elaborate about how she resisted the deputies trying to transport her.

Sources told News4 the first officers who responded to the jail for the report of an unconscious inmate were turned away from the jail, and told they were not needed. Those same sources said it wasn't until four or five days later when McKenna died that detectives were able to start their investigation.

The Fairfax County Police Department launched an investigation into her death, and announced Thursday they'll search for any criminal liability that may have been committed during the incident.

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.