Fairfax County Police Watch: Chicago releases (another) new video of police shooting (another) unarmed black teen

BY COLIN DAILEDA

The city of Chicago released another long-buried video on Thursday that shows another police officer fatally shooting yet another black teenager after officials there officially dropped their objection to its release.

Protests have wracked Chicago and officials have scrambled to appear transparent ever since the November release of a similar video in which an officer shot a black teenager named Laquan McDonald 16 times.

This latest video shows an officer gunning down 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman, who was unarmed and fleeing police when he was shot and killed.

Officer Kevin Fry, who was not reprimanded for the fatal shooting, said Chatman turned and pointed a "black object" at him as Chatman fled, an action not seen in the video.

Fry has been the subject of 30 complaints throughout his career, according toDNAInfo, and yet he has never once been disciplined.

Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden attempted to justify the fatal shooting and said Fry had been in fear of his life.

Camden has lied about police shootings in the past, and is often among the first officials to try to establish a narrative after an officer kills someone, an investigation by the Chicago Tribune showed.

Chatman and two friends had robbed a man of $400 earlier that day, and Chatman had taken off in the man's car. Fry and another officer recognized the car and approached Chatman, at which point he got out of the vehicle and fled.

Police initially charged Chatman's two collaborators with his murder, though they were not at the scene when Fry fatally shot the teenager.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy after the release of the McDonald video, and has desperately tried to appear transparent and dedicated to police reform in its aftermath.

Protesters, however, are calling for his resignation, fed up with years of violence at the hands of police and what they say is an ongoing attempt to cover up the killings.

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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.