Fairfax County Police Watch: Get ready to read A LOT of stories like this after the federal government forces the Fairfax County Occupation police force to wear body cameras

4 drunk driving cases dismissed after officer failed to record sobriety tests

By Justin Jouvenal

A judge has dismissed four drunk-driving cases initiated by the same Fairfax County police officer after he failed to record sobriety tests using his cruiser’s audio and video systems, according to attorneys and court filings.

Attorneys argued that the failure violated police orders and deprived their clients of potentially exculpatory evidence in each case. In some cases, attorneys said defendants’ accounts of the stops varied from those provided by Officer L.F. Martinez.

“When you’ve got this type of equipment, it’s there for everyone’s protection,” said Eric Clingan, a lawyer who handled one of the cases. “It protects the police as much as the citizen.”

Dashcam video of Martinez’s stop of Clingan’s client Dec. 8 shows the officer standing next to the man’s car in the Fair Lakes area. The officer opens the man’s door, and the man follows the officer across the camera frame and then off-screen, where the sobriety test was to be performed. Court filings say the audio recording system was also turned off.

Later, the man was charged with refusing to take a sobriety test and with his second DWI within 10 years. The Washington Post is not naming the man because charges against him have been dismissed.

Under Fairfax County police general orders, officers are required to test their audio and video recording equipment before a shift and utilize both during traffic stops. Officers are also encouraged to film sobriety tests.

Martinez could not immediately be reached for comment. Fairfax police declined to discuss the specific cases that were dismissed or the judge’s ruling. But county police spokesman Don Gotthardt noted that “there is no specific requirement that the officer conducting a sobriety stop keep the subject within view of the camera.”

Clingan said the officer testified that he moved suspects off camera to perform sobriety tests in some instances to find level ground. He also testified he was reluctant to leave the suspects alone to swivel the camera in the proper direction to film the tests.

Attorneys said there were disagreements between the defendants and Martinez about factual matters, but there was no evidence that the officer intentionally conducted the tests out of view of the camera.

“The fact that the client’s versions differed so much from officer’s versions was probably a deciding factor for the court,” attorney Justin J. Weiss said. “However, it was clear that the court found a pattern of inadvertent failure to follow proper procedures with the audio and dashcam.”

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.