Report: Fairfax Co. drivers ticketed for infractions while in shop to repair them

By WTOP Staff

WASHINGTON — Parking enforcement officials in Fairfax County are reportedly issuing tickets to drivers attempting fix the infractions they’re being ticketed for.

Auto repair shop owners tell The Washington Post that they see enforcement officers writing tickets for cars parked at their shops for infractions such as expired emissions tests or inspections, even when the cars are at the shop to fix those problems.

Bruce Redwine, who owns a shop in Chantilly, was arrested after an altercation with a parking enforcement officer over one of these tickets. He said that the officer was writing a ticket for a car that had been pulled into his shop for inspection.

Lt. Brooke Wright, a Fairfax County police spokeswoman, told The Post that the property management company has written to the department and allowed them to write tickets on the private property. Without the letter, Wright says, they would have no authority to be on the property.

Panel recommends broad changes to police practices in Fairfax County

Only in government worker-think Fairfax County would it be determined that the best way to fix a malfunctioning arm of government is to apply MORE GOVERNMENT.

So anyway, this is what’s going to happen in the year ahead.

Sharon “Show me the money!” Bulova will appointment people who have shown her the money, to the police board.

Eventually the board will dissolve because THEY HAVE NOT WORKED ANYWHERE IN AMERICA.

Look, people, this is not difficult. We don’t need more government to solve the police problem.

What we can do is;

Make the idiots wear body cameras and place the result of the film in the on a public site, that way the idiots won’t “accidently destroy” the film that will send one of them to jail.

Fire the police chief. The poor boy is fucking clueless and never ever again hire another chief from within the rank of the police department.   

Require the cops to attain a BA in any field at all within the first seven years of being hired. Pay for their courses, but require it.

Cut their almost half a billion dollar budget and give the money to the school system.

Panel recommends broad changes to police practices in Fairfax County

By Justin Jouvenal and Antonio Olivo October 14  

A panel examining the practices of the Fairfax County Police Department following the shooting of an unarmed Springfield man has recommended broad changes, including greater transparency, more measured use-of-force policies and a civilian review panel.

The recommendations are contained in the 197-page final report of the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission, which has spent the past six months looking at how the department deploys force, trains its officers and communicates with the public.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors created the 70-member commission in March after the controversial slaying of John Geer in 2013 by a Fairfax County officer, who was responding to a domestic disturbance at Geer’s Springfield home.

The case caused an outcry because Geer was unarmed and the investigation into his death stretched on for more than a year before the department released detailed information about the shooting and identified the officer involved. Geer’s family went to court to break the logjam, and the officer was indicted on a murder charge and is awaiting trial.

Michael Hershman, the Ad Hoc commission chairman, said all of the recommendations were approved unanimously by the panel, which was comprised of police, politicians, family members of victims of police shootings, and academics.

“What impressed me most about the operations, about the commission, was the hard work and the inclusiveness of the people involved — not only the commissioners, but also the citizens who joined in the effort at the subcommittee level,” Hershman said. “Just six months ago, there were those who would have wagered that there was no way under the sun that we would reach unanimity in our findings.”

The panel may be fully behind the recommendations, but the ideas must be taken up by the Board of Supervisors beginning Oct. 20. Some may prove politically unpalatable to county leaders and rank-and-file officers.

The recommendations that probably will produce the most friction are to create an independent police auditor to ensure that internal investigations of police use-of-force cases are impartial, and a citizens review panel to field complaints from the public about abuse of authority or serious misconduct by police.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. called the recommendations “well-done community input” and said the department had begun implementing some ideas that tracked with changes it was undertaking.

Roessler said he supported the idea of creating an auditor, but said he was withholding judgment on a citizens review panel. Roessler said he wanted to see how the idea would be fleshed out before making up his mind.

Others were less equivocal.

Fairfax Police Benevolent Association President Joseph Woloszyn said the idea was unworkable in its current form. The panel would consist of seven citizens chosen for their backgrounds, which could include law enforcement experience, diversity and community standing.

“They want people on there who may have no law enforcement experience,” Woloszyn said. “I can’t be on a panel for engineers or journalists. If you are going to have something like that, you have to have people who have law enforcement background and who understand when the use of force is authorized.”

Fairfax County Supervisor John C. Cook (R-Braddock) said he supports creating an independent auditor’s position and a citizens complaint panel.

“How that’s structured is, I think, something we probably need to have a conversation about in a way that includes the community, as well as asking the police to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t,” Cook said of the citizens panel.

When it comes to communicating with the public, the commission recommended a policy of “maximum disclosure, minimum delay” for the department. The commission called for sharing the names of officers involved in shootings within a week, unless there are extenuating circumstances, and making available all video of an incident upon a Freedom of Information Act request.

Roessler said he has begun work on another recommendation — hiring a civilian to run the department’s public information office. He said he hoped to have someone hired within the next three months.

Other recommendations included increasing the diversity of the police force, creating teams of specially trained officers to deal with the mentally ill, and creating a special docket within the court system to handle their cases.

The commission also said the department should shift its philosophy on use of force — or, as it said, “maintain an appropriate balance between an officer’s role as a guardian/warrior or peacemaker/fighter” and suggested that all officers wear body cameras. The latter idea was something the department is working toward.

Mike Curtis, the founder of the police watchdog group Northern Virginia Cop Block, applauded most of the commission’s recommendations, but said he was skeptical that the will exists among Fairfax County’s elected leaders and police brass to make the reforms stick.

“The wheels are already turning to keep their feet from being held to the fire,” Curtis said.

Antonio covers government, politics and other regional issues in Fairfax County. He worked in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago before joining the Post in September of 2013.

Fairfax County: Police Commission Calls for Auditor, Civilian Review Board

Unanimous recommendations head to supervisors in wake of John Geer shooting, transparency missteps.

By Tim Peterson

#After six months of meetings, the Ad Hoc commission created by Board of Supervisors chairman Sharon Bulova to review police practices has concluded its primary work. Chair of the commission’s Independent Oversight and Investigations subcommittee Jack Johnson presented that group’s final recommendations to the full commission on Oct. 8.

#The subcommittee unanimously favored creating an Independent Police Auditor position that would “report directly to the Board of Supervisors and would provide oversight in cases of police use of force that lead to serious injury or death, including officer involved shootings,” Johnson’s letter to commission chairman Michael Hershman said.

#The report also calls for establishing a seven-member Civilian Review Panel for cases of alleged police misconduct. The panelists are meant to work with the new auditor “as to serious use of force cases so that the panel can provide its views to the Board of Supervisors and the Chief of Police as to policy and practices changes that may be warranted,” Johnson said in the letter.

#“Oversight provides a meaningful voice or forum for the public and forms a crucial bridge between the public and the police,” Johnson continued. “Increased transparency, trust, and communication between the police and the public can lead to greater community cooperation in achieving the ultimate goal of decreased crime and increased public safety.”

#It was the last full meeting of the ad hoc commission, and in addition to hearing from the independent oversight committee, the commission voted unanimously to support the recommendations of all five subcommittees and to forward the recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Recommendations from the Mental Health Subcommittee call for an overhaul of how the criminal justice system responds to people in mental health crisis.

#Commission chairman Hershman is scheduled to present the group’s recommendations to the Board of Supervisors at its Oct. 20 regular meeting.

#“It is Chairman Bulova’s intention to move to accept the report and refer it to staff for discussion at the Public Safety Committee scheduled for Oct. 27 at 3 p.m,” said Bulova’s chief of staff Clayton Medford.

#The Board of Supervisors launched the Fairfax County Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission in response to public concern over the shooting death of John Geer by a Fairfax County police officer. On Aug. 17, 2015, former Fairfax County Police officer Adam Torres was charged with the second-degree murder of Geer, who was shot dead in the doorway to his own own home on Aug. 29, 2013 after police were called in a domestic dispute. Torres was fired in July 2015, almost two years later.

#The commission has been meeting since March as a full commission and five subcommittees. Areas of focus by committee include Use of Force; Communications; Mental Health; Recruitment, Diversity and Vetting; and Independent Investigations and Oversight.

#The final report from the Ad Hoc commission is available online at www.fairfaxcounty.gov/chairman/pdf/adhoc-final-10.8.15.pdf.

Let's boycott the police union Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 ...what the fuck, why not?

Police union head calls for boycotting local pumpkin patch over a #BlackLivesMatter sign

Brad Carruthers in his best ill fitting suit

The head of a Fairfax County police union called for a boycott of a popular pumpkin patch because a “Black Lives Matter” sign was displayed in the window of a home nearby. [...]

In the initial [Facebook] message, Carruthers posted a photo of the sign and wrote that displaying it was a “slap in the face” to the Fairfax County police.

“When Black Lives Matter emerged, it was a small group trying to do the right thing,” Carruthers said in an interview. “The fact of the matter is it seemed like that movement got hijacked toward anti-police sentiments.”

The post has since been deleted, but this premise that the Black Lives Matter movement is "anti-police," as opposed to a civil rights movement that doesn't want unarmed black Americans getting shot, is a position that can only be held if you believe that not shooting unarmed black Americans constitutes being "anti-police." At the very least, that's a position of ignorance, but far more often (e.g. Fox News) it's utterly predictable racism.

The same people that think black Americans are getting "free stuff," or that yes indeedy unarmed black Americans count as super-dangerous and "armed" simply by the virtue of having limbs, or that a black child walking down the street with a toy gun is an obvious reason to panic even while we huff and puff and celebrate the brave patriotic scruffy white unhinged people that wander the streets with their real weapons just to show other Americans that hell yeah, they're allowed to carry weapons—if you already have believed every other racist thing that someone, somewhere has shoveled your way then you of course are willing to believe that Black Lives Matter is not a good and noble civil rights effort along the lines promoted by the inspirational Martin Luther King, Jr., but instead is a violence-minded and subversive anti-authority effort, like the ones promoted by that sketchy troublemaker Martin Luther King, Jr.

What do you see, when you look out on the crowds of black American faces with their signs? For too many Americans, they see only what they are primed to see. Or what they have always seen.

There is a good ending to this story, or at least a better one than you might have expected. The post came down, though only after receiving outrage from many and a sturdy defending from others, people who scuttled out of their holes convinced that Black Lives Matters has been "calling for police deaths" and for whom no amount of saying otherwise would ever do. 

The family that owns the pumpkin patch and in whose home the sign was displayed in wrote a damn fine response defending and explaining the Black Lives Matter movement.

Police Bully Family Farm Over ‘Black Lives Matter’ Sign

The police union at the Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 called for a boycott of the family business, according to local WUSA.

By M. David for Counter Current News and

S. Wooten

Virginia police couldn’t believe a local family farm would have the audacity to post a “black lives matter” sign on their window. Far from just a statement, the phrase has come to indicate support not just for the idea that black lives matter just like all other lives, but also for the wave of police accountability protests by the activist group by the same name.

The police union at the Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 called for a boycott of the family business, according to local WUSA.

But the call against Cox Farms backfired dramatically.

First of all, the sign was posted in the window of one of the family farm’s private homes. But even this personal expression of support for police accountability activism was too much for the local cops.

The Fairfax FOP referred to the sign as “disturbing and disappointing” in their Facebook post. Backlash and public outcry later led them to remove the post.

“This is a time in which law enforcement is the target for criticism for almost everything they do and officers are constantly questioned by the public and the media without the benefit of all the facts,” the FOP post read. “The presence of this sign at Cox’s Farms helps perpetuate this kind of behavior and judgment. I know you have heard it about a million times but the truth is that ‘All Lives Matter.’”

The community rallied behind Cox Farms which is known and loved by the community as a place to pick pumpkins and take autumn taking tractor rides.

But the police said that the business should be boycotted because of their “baseless criticism” of the police.

Gina Cox, the owner of Cox Farms, said they have the right to post whatever signs they want on their home or place of business.

“It’s her private property and she can put up any political sign she wants to in her yard,” she explained to local WUSA. “We treasure our relationship with our local police force, it’s not anything against them at all.”

Now, residents are accusing the police department of bullying and intimidation.

“The Facebook post they made, which was removed because of the unprecedented public outrage towards their attempt to bully a local landmark and beloved destination, further reinforces the lack of trust in the Fairfax County Police Department,” a local Cop Block community activist Mike Curtis, told the station.

The FOP president, Brad Carruthers, said said that they backed off of the family because it was the “wiser course of action.”

“The phrase ‘black lives matter,’ which was initially associated with the positive intentions of creating better connections within communities and encouraging education and dialogue on issues of race, has unfortunately also been used more recently to incite violence against law enforcement officers, which is why it has negative connotations for us,” Caruthers stated. “My hope is that the situation will improve and we will forge better bonds and a better partnership within our communities.”

But Black Lives Matter activist Erika Totten said to WUSA. “It’s not an attack on individual officers; it’s a movement to highlight the structural oppression Black people face in this country. When Black men, women and children are dying in the street at the hands of a law enforcement officer every 28 hours, when most of the people incarcerated are there for non violent crimes, when a Black boy can be assaulted for using the ATM and for making gentrifies uncomfortable, how can we not begin the conversation on how to eradicate racial bias in our criminal justice system.”

Police union head calls for boycott of pumpkin patch over 'Black Lives Matter' sign

By Justin Jouvenal October 15 

The head of a Fairfax County police union called for a boycott of a popular pumpkin patch because a “Black Lives Matter” sign was displayed in the window of a home nearby.

Brad Carruthers, president of Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77, said he would not patronize Centreville’s Cox Farms and urged others to do the same in a lengthy message posted on the union's Facebook page on Tuesday. Carruthers has since removed the post, writing that its intent was misrepresented and some of the dozens of angry comments that were left on it were inflammatory.

In the initial message, Carruthers posted a photo of the sign and wrote that displaying it was a “slap in the face” to the Fairfax County police.

“When Black Lives Matter emerged, it was a small group trying to do the right thing,” Carruthers said in an interview. “The fact of the matter is it seemed like that movement got hijacked toward anti-police sentiments.”

Carruthers added he felt some Black Lives Matter activists had helped foment violence toward police officers across the country.

Mike Curtis, the founder of police watchdog group Northern Virginia Cop Block, blasted Carruthers’s call for a boycott and circulated the Facebook post.

“I think they use things like this to create a false war on cops,” Curtis said. “They want to create the impression they are under attack from everyone. Cox Farms works hand-in-hand with the police.”

Erika Totten, a Black Lives Matter activist in D.C., said she views the post as an effort at “intimidation and control.” She said she also thought it was “odd” for Carruthers to focus on a small business.

The owners of Cox Farms issued a statement about the boycott on Thursday.

“We have always believed that we had a very positive relationship with our local police department,” the family wrote on Facebook. “We have contracted FCPD officers to provide security for our festival for over a decade. We have supported their fundraising efforts, donated to their Police Unity tour, employed their children, and offered discounts to officers on our Public Servants Weekends. Neither our family nor our business is anti-cop, and we are absolutely anti-violence, against anyone. For this reason, we were especially surprised that the FOP and so many local officers jumped on the call to boycott our business and make such hateful accusations against us via social media.”

Carruthers wrote in the initial Facebook post that an off-duty Fairfax County police officer had noticed the sign when he was at the farm with his family. Carruthers called the sign “disturbing and disappointing.”

“This is a time in which law enforcement is the target for criticism for almost everything they do and officers are constantly questioned by the public and the media without the benefit of all the facts,” the Facebook post read. “The presence of this sign at Cox’s Farm helps perpetuate this kind of behavior and judgment. I know you have heard it all about a million times but the truth is that ‘All Lives Matter.’ ”

Carruthers finished by writing: “I hope you will join me and my police family and make a choice to go somewhere else to enjoy your family fun this fall, where you will not be confronted by such baseless criticism and judgment.”

Carruthers wrote that the sign was displayed in the window of one of the farm's management buildings, but a comment posted from the Cox Farms Facebook account said the building was a private residence of one of the farm’s owners and was not on the farm’s property.

The post drew strong reactions from hundreds of commenters on Facebook.

“Thanks for being completely out of touch with the rest of society,” one person wrote.

Others defended Carruthers. “I agree with this police department — you can't have it both ways,” another wrote. “You can't expect extra help from your local police and post propaganda from a group calling for police deaths.BOYCOTT COX FARM. There are plenty of other places to take your kids that are a good example.”

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said Carruthers had the right to free speech, but was not speaking on behalf of the department.

“I'm a neighbor of Cox Farms,” Roessler said. “That sign does not offend me. The sanctity of human life is paramount in our profession.”