Fairfax County Police Watch: We don’t need police. Here’s how we can do without them.

By Joël Valenzuela on January 2, 2014

The cops are out of control. So much so that some of us are dreaming of a post-police world. Well, there’s no more need to dream. Wake up. It’s happening right before our eyes. And it’s about time. The police have gotten so far away from their purported role of protecting the people that more often than not they have ended up doing the exact opposite.

The tragic case of Marlene Tapia provides a perfect deconstruction of everything that’s wrong with today’s police state. First, Tapia was detained on suspicion of possessing narcotics. Never mind that she wasn’t hurting anyone, or that said narcotics were intended to make her, or someone someone else, happy, even if only temporarily. The officer involved was protecting or helping absolutely no one. Next, Tapia was strip-searched, a gross and forceful violation of her privacy and person. Again, such a procedure protects no one and only comes into play because of the aforementioned substance restriction. Finally, upon noticing evidence of a concealed substance protruding from Tapia’s body, the officer sprayed her genitals with mace, serving absolutely no purpose other than to cause her pain and humiliation.

What’s the worst part of this story? That everything the officer did except for the macing was standard procedure? That the officer had been “disciplined” for her torturous action, yet remained on staff? Or that millions of us involuntarily pay for an armed force to visit violence and aggression upon us?

How can we get the police to start working for us again? By making them private. Now I know you’re thinking this is just another libertarian fantasy. It isn’t. It’s real. And where is it happening? In the land of government failure: Detroit.

Yes, we’re talking about private citizens picking up the slack left by police incompetence. But we’re also talking about something even better: the Threat Management Center. This Detroit-based business has effectively filled the protection void left by law enforcement. But it gets even better. The Threat Management Center’s sole priorities are the protection of the people under their charge. They have specific incentives to focus exclusively on safety, and find non-violent ways of defusing tense situations before resorting to force. Since they’re privately funded, they have a direct incentive to make their customers happy. Any form of misconduct can instantly result in a loss of funding.

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.