Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax police refuse information to father of police shooting victim David Masters

Where Sharon "Show me the money" on this? Where's the board of supervisors on this?

By Tom Jackman July 28

A request by the father of David A. Masters, the unarmed motorist shot and killed by a Fairfax County police officer in 2009, to see the investigative files and learn why the shooting happened has been denied by Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler. Roessler said that since there is no statute of limitations on murder or manslaughter, he will not release the information and cited the clause in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that Fairfax police use to deny FOIA requests for crime reports in virtually every case, according to areport issued last week by a committee studying Fairfax police communications.

But there is no statute of limitations on any felony in Virginia, giving Fairfax police justification to deny all felony crime report requests forever. And Roessler’s denial letter, received Monday by Masters’ father, retired Army colonel Barrie Masters of Sanford, Fla., gives no indication that the Fairfax police ever intend to change their policy of refusing access to police reports in officer-involved shootings, instead discussing “review by an independent auditor” and “a higher level of accountability for all.”

Masters, 52, was shot as he drove away from Officer David S. Ziants on Route 1 in the Alexandria area of Fairfax on Nov. 13, 2009. Ziants was not charged with a crime because he believed, mistakenly, that Masters was reaching for a gun, was driving a stolen vehicle and had run over another officer, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh said in January 2010. But Ziants was fired for violating the department’s use of deadly force policy.

But unlike the police shootings of Salvatore Culosi Jr. in 2006 and John B. Geer in 2013, there was no civil suit to force Fairfax police to release information about the Masters case. Masters had named his ex-wife and stepdaughter as the executors of his estate, but under Virginia law they were not entitled to recover any damages since they were not his legal family, though they were his daily companions and closest friends. Masters’ brother-in-law attempted to file a suit anyway in 2011, but it went nowhere.

Meanwhile, Masters’ father watched from a distance, his anger slowly burning. Then in May of this year, Roessler suddenly released an in-car video camera tape of Ziants hustling up to Masters’ vehicle and then firing shots just out of camera range, while another officer screams at him to stop shooting. This outraged Barrie Masters, who earlier this month sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the police seeking everything related to the case.

In the letter below, Roessler denied access to everything. “In an effort to provide transparency to you on the internal administrative investigation,” Roessler wrote, “the Police Department terminated Officer Ziants’ employment on March 24, 2011.” This was publicly reported by The Post in June 2011, though a police spokeswoman then said Ziants had been fired on May 6, 2011.

Roessler goes on to discuss that his department has been working with the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission “to hopefully develop a process of increasing transparency in many areas including those of officer-involved shooting cases.” The chief explains that he hopes to create a review process so that the investigations are thorough and that once a case is completely resolved, it could be reviewed by an independent auditor. He does not mention ever making any investigative documents publicly available.

Roessler’s letter, dated Friday, was written a day after he was asked by The Post about releasing police reports and said, “I’m considering a change. There’s got to be more dialogue about how we respond to this. This is a national dialogue, and the profession needs to change. I need to help this department change. This is the community’s voice and I need to actively listen and implement where I can.”

Barrie Masters responded in an e-mail to Roessler Monday night that his use of the FOIA exemption for “criminal investigative files” is something “You and your associates have hidden behind this assertion for almost 6 years now, and of course, you well know that the current law does not say the information requested is exempt from release only that it can be released at the discretion of the custodian. Your own Police Practices Review Commission, Communications Subcommittee, (which I fully support) has recommended you end the blanket approach to suppressing information under the excuse of your own interpretation of 2.2-3706 (2) and move toward the timely release of all criminal investigative information..It is time that Fairfax County Government and Fairfax County Law Enforcement join the rest of the Nation in advocating transparency.”

Here is Roessler’s letter denying Masters’ FOIA request:

Tom Jackman is a native of Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.

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.