Fairfax County Police Watch: Virginia Senate passes bill to keep police officers’ names secret

By Radley Balko

Several years ago, local journalists noticed that three of the largest police agencies in Virginia — the Fairfax County Police Department, the Alexandria Police Department and the Arlington County Police Department — were summarily denying all open-records requests. Virginia actually has pretty decent open-records laws, but these agencies were simply choosing to ignore them. This came to light after a number of police shootings in which the agencies involved had refused to name the officers responsible. Journalist Michael Pope found that the agencies were even declining to release information about cases they were simultaneously touting in press releases.

This was essentially an open defiance of state law. Yet the Alexandria commonwealth’s attorney not only defended the lack of transparency, he blamed the media for wanting such information in the first place, and derisively referred to “the sacred ‘right of the public to know.’ ”

The Virginia Senate responded with some watered-down modifications to the state’s open-record laws. Even those modifications were vigorously opposed by law enforcement agencies across the state.

Fast-forward to this week. The Virginia Senate just passed a horrendous bill.

The Virginia Senate voted 25-15 on Monday to keep the names of all police officers and deputy sheriffs a secret.

SB552 by Sen. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, applies to any local or state officer, including officers from agencies such as the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the Virginia Marine Police.

Cosgrove said during an earlier subcommittee hearing that he filed the bill in response to a November court ruling allowing The Virginian-Pilot access to names, agencies and employment dates for current Virginia police officers. The newspaper is examining how often officers who got in trouble were able to find other jobs in law enforcement.

Cosgrove said Monday that his bill, which exempts law enforcement officers from Freedom of Information Act requirements, should be passed to protect officers and their families from being targeted for violence.

“Unfortunately, our culture has changed,” he said. “Many times, police officers are considered fair game.”

Where to begin? Let’s start with the fact that this bill was introduced in direct response to a newspaper investigation into why police officers who are fired for misconduct are permitted to simply go work for another agency. Does Sen. Cosgrove believe that cops who are fired for corruption, misuse of force, or illegal acts should be able to find work at another police agency? Why doesn’t he want the public to know when and how often this happens?

Another Virginia state senator actually cited “ISIS terrorism” as a reason to keep the identities of police officers secret. For the record, Cosgrove claims membership in his local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police and has been named Legislator of the Year by the FOP and the Virginia State Police Association. He has received campaign contributions from the latter and the Virginia Sheriffs Association.

The notion that “our culture has changed” is also wrong. As we’ve documented over and over again here at The Watch, policing has been getting safer for decades. (Yes, the start of 2016 has seen an inordinate number of killings of police officers. There’s no evidence this is indicative of a trend or is the beginning of a reversal of the generation-long trend toward fewer such killings.) I’m not aware of a single incident in which the publication of a police officer’s name after an officer-involved shooting has led to violence against that police officer or his or her family. In a few very high-profile cases, there have been threats. But to require police agencies to keep all officers’ names secret would essentially remove the ability of the media and watchdog groups to find patterns of officer misconduct. It would mean the public would be completely reliant on law enforcement agencies to police themselves. That’s a massive overreaction to a perceived threat for which there’s little to zero evidence.

It’s worth stating one more time exactly what’s happening here: Virginia’ state Senate thinks the public should be forbidden from knowing the names of the public servants entrusted with the power to detain, arrest and kill.

Let’s hope the Virginia House of Delegates ends this madness and kills the bill.

Radley Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. He is the author of the book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces."

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.