He'll serve ONE YEAR....that's it..ONE YEAR for killing a man in a temper tantrum
Former Police officer faced
murder charges for 2013 shooting
By Tim Peterson
John Geer’s father Don Geer said
he had “mixed emotions” following Adam Torres’ involuntary manslaughter guilty
plea on April 18, 2016.
#“What’s important now is keeping
pressure on the supervisors to make sure a review panel is enacted and they
develop some timeline policy for handling these situations.”
#— Jeff Stewart, best friend of
John Geer who witnessed his death
#It was over before it began.
Neither prosecution nor defense gave opening statements in former Fairfax
County Police Officer Adam Torres’ trial for the August 2013 murder of
Springfield resident John Geer. Instead on Monday, April 18, Torres pleaded
guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter for the August 2013 incident.
#Police had responded to a call
that day from Geer’s live-in girlfriend Maura Harrington that he was throwing
her belongings out of the house. Torres and another officer talked with Geer
for 40 minutes before Torres fired, hitting him in the chest.
#Torres claimed Geer suddenly
lowered his hands, making him think Geer was reaching for a gun.
#Harrington and Geer lived
together for more than 20 years and had two teenage daughters. Harrington had
told Geer that she was moving out.
#The Sunday before the trial was
set to begin, Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh said Torres’ attorneys
contacted him with the plea offer. Morrogh then spoke with Harrington, the
family’s attorney Michael Lieberman and Geer’s parents.
#With the deal, Torres would
serve 12 months in jail, getting credit for the eight months already served.
Being a convicted felon would prevent him from owning a firearm or becoming a
police officer again, a priority for Harrington and her daughters, Morrogh
said.
#Geer’s mother was “vehemently opposed
to any agreement,” Morrogh said, adding that she “wants a life sentence.”
#The sentencing is set for June
24, at which point the judge may accept or amend the length of Torres’
sentence, or reject the plea altogether. If that happens, Morrogh said, the
case would go to trial with a different judge. Torres is the first Fairfax
County Police Officer in the history of the department to be charged in a
shooting death.
#“It’s certainly not an ideal or
perfect situation,” Morrogh said during a press conference following the
hearing, outside the Fairfax Courthouse. “My role is to get as much justice as
I can, for victims and family.”
#Morrogh said Harrington was
concerned about defense plans to call Geer’s 19-year-old daughter — who was at
a neighbor’s house at the time of the shooting — to testify about her father’s
past actions and character.
#Morrogh also said the defense
had an expert lined up to argue that Torres acted reasonably given the
situation. “I thought we had real good evidence on where his hands were,”
Morrogh said, but “those are the kinds of things that can muddy the waters,”
for a jury.
#“I weighed it all, this is my
decision and I stand by it,” Morrogh said.
#IN A PHONE INTERVIEW, Lieberman
said he was pleased Morrogh went with the plea deal. He said many prosecutors
turn them down, but it can be difficult to get a felony conviction in cases
like this with a police officer involved.
#Lieberman said the family was
also thinking of Torres’ wife and children in accepting the plea. He supplied a
statement from Geer’s daughters in which they say, “Whatever his faults,
Torres’ wife and children did not murder our father, and it would be wrong to
hurt them just to allay our own anger and pain. Robbing other children of time
with their father would only make us complicit in another wrong.”
#The daughters cite the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors and Police Department, bodies which withheld
details of their father’s shooting from them for 17 months. That included
personnel files and accounts of Torres having a history of outbursts and
marital stress.
#Until a $12 million wrongful
death case brought by the Geer family forcing the release of information,
Fairfax County Police stood by policy they said kept them from releasing
Torres’ name or many other details of the shooting while investigations into
the incident were ongoing.
#“As for the Fairfax County Board
of Supervisors and the Fairfax County Police Department, we remain appalled by
their actions in covering up the truth and putting Torres in the position to
decide life and death given what they knew about his background,” the
daughters’ statement continues. “Until such time that the ad hoc [commission’s]
recommendations are adopted and the policies of the FCPD are changed, we fear
that these tragic events can occur again with different victims and different
officers.”
#FAIRFAX COUNTY BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS Chairman Sharon Bulova and Chief of Police Edwin Roessler sent out
statements following the guilty plea that offered sympathy to Geer’s family and
friends. Though each have previously acknowledged the case wasn’t handled as
well as it could have been, their statements stopped short of admitting
wrongdoing. They focused more on forging ahead.
#“The death of John Geer and
events that followed have sparked a number of changes in our Police Department
to include a transformation in the way officers are trained to respond to
critical incidents,” Bulova said in her statement. “The Board of Supervisors is
moving forward with recommendations made by the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review
Commission, demonstrating Fairfax County’s commitment to maintaining the public
trust and making our Police Department a national model moving forward.”
#The county recently posted a
progress report online for the implementation of the commission’s 142
recommended policy changes.
#In a statement, Supervisor Pat
Herrity (R-Springfield) said, “The process to resolve this sad chapter in
Fairfax County history has been lengthy and frustrating, much to our own
doing.”
#Though some policies have been
changed or updated, including a Diversion First program to direct nonviolent
offenders with mental illness to receive treatment services rather than jail
time, Fairfax County has yet to adopt or implement an independent auditor or
citizen oversight board — two of the recommendations receiving considerable
attention.
#Roessler’s statement added, “The
men and women of the Fairfax County Police Department have fully cooperated
with all authorities during this investigation. The action of one former
employee is not reflective of the honorable work done day-in and day-out by all
members of our Department.”
#Geer’s best friend Jeff Stewart,
who witnessed the 2013 shooting and went on to serve on the Fairfax County Ad
Hoc Police Practices Review Commission, responded critically to Roessler’s
words.
#“They weren’t compliant,”
Stewart said in a phone interview, “otherwise we wouldn’t have had to involve
the federal Justice Department and [U.S.] senators.”
#Morrogh handed his initial
investigation of the incident to the U.S. Attorney Dana Boente, later
explaining that Fairfax County Police were withholding information from him.
And U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, got involved in November 2014 when he sent formal inquiries to
Roessler and Boente about the stagnant case.
#AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE
following Monday’s hearing, Morrogh commented on the Fairfax County attorneys
who advised the Board of Supervisors to go along with not releasing the
information, saying, “I’ve never seen anyone act like that. I hope it never
happens again, it was dead wrong.”
#“Because of that, we were left
with nothing for 17 months,” said Stewart, “which in itself is a crime. What’s
important now is keeping pressure on the supervisors to make sure a review
panel is enacted and they develop some timeline policy for handling these
situations.”
#Near the conclusion of the
hearing, Torres said he was “truly sorry for my actions” and “heartbroken” for
Geer’s children. “No words I can say today … adequately express my remorse.”
#Geer’s father Don said he didn’t
hear the apology in the courtroom, and that it was the first one he’d heard
from Torres.
#“A little late in coming,”
he said. “Nothing on this has been done in a timely manner.”
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