Fairfax County Police Watch: Texas Trooper Who Arrested Sandra Bland Is Charged With Perjury

By DAVID MONTGOMERYJAN. 6, 2016

HEMPSTEAD, Tex. — The state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland, the Chicago-area woman who three days later was found hanged in her cell at the Waller County jail, has been indicted on a perjury charge, a special prosecutor here said Wednesday.

Hours after the indictment was announced against the trooper, Brian T. Encinia, the Department of Public Safety said that the state police agency “will begin termination proceedings to discharge him.”

The charge against Trooper Encinia, a Class A misdemeanor, was announced at the end of a day of grand jury deliberations. It carries a possible penalty of one year in jail and a $4,000 fine, prosecutors said.

The charge stemmed from a one-page affidavit that Trooper Encinia filed with jail officials justifying the arrest of Ms. Bland, who was pulled over July 10 in a routine traffic stop in Prairie View, northwest of Houston, for failing to use her turn signal. Ms. Bland, 28, who was black, was returning to Texas to take a job at Prairie View A&M University, her alma mater.

Assessing the Legality of Sandra Bland’s Arrest

A video released by Texas officials confirms accounts of a physical confrontation between Ms. Bland and a state trooper. But her arrest and cause of death remain in dispute.

The trooper wrote that he removed Ms. Bland from her car to more safely conduct a traffic investigation, but “the grand jury found that statement to be false,” a special prosecutor, Shawn McDonald, said.

A police dashboard-camera video of the episode shows an escalating confrontation after Ms. Bland refuses Trooper Encinia’s request to put out a cigarette. At one point, Trooper Encinia says he will forcibly remove Ms. Bland from her car and threatens her with a Taser, saying, “I will light you up.”

Larkin Eakin, Trooper Encinia’s lawyer, said he spoke to his client after the indictment was announced. “His reaction was he’s not guilty,” Mr. Eakin said. “When you’re not guilty, you don’t expect to be indicted.”

The Videos That Are Putting Race and Policing Into Sharp Relief

The next step calls for a Waller County judge to issue a warrant, set bond and schedule an arraignment hearing. Mr. Eakin said Trooper Encinia remained on administrative duty and would appear for the arraignment when the date was set.

The question of criminal charges against Trooper Encinia was believed to be the last major issue facing the grand jury, which began its investigation in August, two special prosecutors, Darrell Jordan and Lewis White, told reporters outside the Waller County Courthouse earlier Wednesday. The grand jury had already declined to indict any of Ms. Bland’s jailers in connection with her death on July 13, effectively sustaining the medical examiner’sruling of suicide.

Ms. Bland’s family, which has filed a wrongful-death suit, has expressed frustration and disappointment with the grand jury, saying Waller County officials have failed to keep them informed about its progress. Cannon Lambert, the family’s lawyer, has called the case a “sham of a process.” The Waller County district attorney, Elton Mathis, appointed an independent panel of five lawyers, including Mr. Jordan and Mr. White, to oversee the investigation.

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.