Fairfax County Police Watch: Cop Fired For Flipping Driver Off

By Sheena Vasani, Tue, March 1, 2016

A North Carolina Sheriff’s Deputy was fired after a camera caught him flashing the middle finger at a driver Feb. 26.

Van Anthony, 52, gave the rude gesture to civilian driver Scott Lipe, who was filming Anthony from another car after catching him speeding, Fox News reports.

"I could see him coming up in the rear view mirror, and I was like, 'This car is flying.' So my phone was sitting beside me in the seat," Lipe said, WLOS reports.

The driver explained after he pulled out his camera, the officer waved and gave him the finger.

"He's a deputy. He's in a patrol car in a uniform with a badge, and there's people all over the place. And he's just waving his finger around like he doesn't care," Lipe said. "I mean if you look at the picture, he's just smiling and having a good time."

The sheriff later apologized to Lipe and, after being their employee for nearly two years, was fired by Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

"They hold us accountable, and sometimes they have to be held accountable," Lipe explained.

Indeed, there have been many instances where civilians have gotten into trouble with law enforcement for holding up the same gesture.

William Martin received a disorderly conduct summons after flipping off an aggressive driver who turned out to be a police officer, the Bergendis Patch reports.

“When I received a summons, I felt that my free speech rights were under attack for nothing more than expressing my frustration with someone whose driving had put people at risk,” Martin said.

The ACLU agreed and defended Martin, whose charges were later dismissed. ACLU-NJ Deputy Legal Director Jeanne LoCicero, Martin’s representative, said:

Enforcing manners rather than public safety is a poor use of police resources. Our client expressed his frustration using a peaceful, silent gesture that is protected by the First Amendment. In this case, an officer chose to initiate and escalate an encounter instead of just ignoring it. It might be rude to flip off a police officer, but it isn’t a crime.”

Martin was grateful when the charges against him were dismissed.

“I’m relieved to know that the town of New Milford recognized it wasn’t worth prosecuting me for expressing my frustration,” he explained.

Sources: Fox News, WLOS, Bergendis Patch / Photo credit: Office of the Sheriff Jackson County

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.