Fairfax County Police Watch: Another killer cops gets away with murder............

NYPD cop who shot Ramarley Graham should be fired, protesters say

By Matthew Chayes

Family of an unarmed Bronx teen shot dead by an NYPD officer in 2012, furious at this week’s announcement that the shooter will go unprosecuted, went to City Hall Thursday to demand his firing.

Chanting and flanked by members of the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, the mother of Ramarley Graham said her grief is compounded by Officer Richard Haste’s continued presence on the police force, as well as that of others involved in the case.

“These officers should not be running around with a gun or a badge,” Constance Malcolm, the 18-year-old’s mother, said in the City Hall plaza. “They murdered my son.”

Speaking in the Bronx later in the day, Police Commissioner William Bratton said the officers involved had been served with internal charges and the case is “now in the hands of the department advocate” — the NYPD’s in-house prosecutor — “and he will be putting his case together and going forward.”

At the rally, leaders of the 26-member council caucus released a letter to Bratton saying that “Officer Haste’s continued service on the police force is neither safe nor just.”

The fatal encounter began Feb. 2, 2012, when narcotics cops became suspicious of Graham as he walked through a Bronx neighborhood with friends. Radio traffic indicates they believed he was armed.

They chased him to his family’s apartment, and, without a warrant, busted in and shot him, mistaking a gesture by the teen as a reach for a weapon. Marijuana was found in the toilet, but no gun.

A state grand jury had initially indicted the cop, but that case was dismissed because of a prosecutorial mistake. A second grand jury declined to indict. The city settled a civil case with the teen’s family for $3.9 million.

Earlier this week, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, announced that there was insufficient evidence to charge Haste with a federal crime.

Assemblyman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) said that the lack of any prosecution and Haste’s employment with the NYPD put the city in jeopardy for unrest.

won’t bring charges in Graham case

“Warning! Warning!” Barron said. “When peaceful methods for justice are ignored, violence is inevitable.”

— With Anthony M. DeStefano

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.