Fairfax County Police Watch: The Madison Way

By improvingpolice

POLICING THE MADISON WAY

For a great number of years, the following has been the way of the Madison, Wisc. police department. Leading the way were these two statements: one of vision, the other of mission.

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VISION

We are a dynamic organization devoted to improvement, excellence, maintaining customer satisfaction, and operating on the principles of quality leadership. “Closer to the People; Quality from the Inside Out”

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MISSION

We believe in the dignity and worth of all people.

We are committed to: providing high-quality, community-oriented police services with sensitivity, protecting constitutional rights, problem-solving, teamwork, openness, planning for the future, continuous improvement, and providing leadership to the police profession.

We are proud of the diversity of our work force, which permits us to grow and which respects each of us as individuals, and we strive for a healthful workplace.

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Whenever the actions, practices, or direction of the department were questioned, the above two statements and the values they represent was used as a template indicate what the department stood for; “On This We Stand.” It also let us know when we were not acting according to our values..

In describing the Madison Way, the following points are primary:

•Hiring smart, educated police officers.

•Seeking diversity in the ranks.

•Using a unique leadership style called “Quality Leadership [see below].

•Continuously improving all work systems -- everything.

•Softly handling public protest.

•Assigning many officers to neighborhood-level, community-oriented responsibility and empowering them.

•Conducting on-going surveys of recipients of police services (“customers”) to know how they were doing.

•Pressing to be ever-closer to people served.

•Asking and generously listening to the community and those within the ranks on an on-going basis.

Principles of Quality Leadership

1. Improve SYSTEMS and examine processes before blaming people

2. Have a CUSTOMER orientation and focus toward employees and citizens.

3. Believe that the best way to improve the quality of work or service is to ASK and LISTEN to employees who are doing the work.

4. Be committed to the PROBLEM-SOLVING process; use it and let DATA, not emotions, drive decisions.

5. Be a FACILITATOR and COACH. Develop an OPEN atmosphere that encourages providing and accepting FEEDBACK

6. Encourage CREATIVITY through RISK-TAKING and be tolerant of honest MISTAKES.

7. Avoid top-down, POWER-ORIENTED decision-making whenever possible.

8. Manage on the BEHAVIOR of 95% of employees and not on the 5% who cause problems. Deal with the 5% PROMPTLY and FAIRLY.

9. Believe in, foster and support TEAMWORK

10..With teamwork, develop with employees agreed-upon GOALS and a PLAN to achieve them.

11. Seek employees INPUT before you make key decisions.

12. Strive to develop mutual RESPECT and TRUST among employees; DRIVE OUT FEAR.

https://improvingpolice.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/the-madison-way/

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.