Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax County Police add to their greatest hits list

Fairfax police seek witnesses to a struggle before a ‘severely autistic’ man’s death

By Fenit Nirappil

Fairfax County detectives are looking for witnesses to a struggle in Falls Church between officers and a severely autistic man who died after the encounter.

Officers who were seeking a missing person found Paul Gianelos on a commercial strip on Annandale Road shortly after 1 p.m on April 20. Police said the 45-year-old man became combative for unknown reasons when they tried to escort him to a cruiser, and in an ensuing struggle, Gianelos ended up on the ground and in handcuffs.

Medics came to examine an abrasion on Gianelos’s head and determined he was “suffering a medical emergency,” police have said in a news release. He died later at a hospital, and autopsy results are pending.]

Authorities want to talk to passengers of a 3A Metro bus on Annandale Road heading to East Falls Church that passed by the struggle, in addition to anyone else driving or walking nearby.

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Gianelos was handcuffed on the 3100 block about a mile and a half north of Roundtree Park, where he had wandered off from a lunch organized by a group that helps people with disabilities.

Anyone with information can call Detective Cara Griffith at 703-246-7526.

The incident is under investigation by the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County and the county police department’s Major Crimes and Internal Affairs divisions.

Gianelos had no history of violence and could not speak, his brother Jim Gianelos previously told The Washington Post.

Fairfax police release names of officers involved in struggle with autistic man who died

By Justin Jouvenal April 27

Fairfax County police released the names of the officers who were involved in a struggle with a severely autistic man who died following the encounter in Falls Church last week.

Police said Wednesday that Master Police Officer Michael Meszaros, a 25-year veteran, was the first to make contact with 45-year-old Paul Gianelos after he wandered away from his caretakers at Roundtree Park and they alerted authorities on April 20.

Meszaros and Pfc. Hyun Chang, a six-year veteran, found Gianelos over a mile away on a commercial strip and tried to escort the Annandale man back to a police cruiser, police said.

“It was at this time there was a struggle and the two officers and Mr. Gianelos found themselves on the ground,” police said in a news release.

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Fairfax County police did not detail what happened during the struggle or explain how Gianelos and the officers ended up on the ground. Officer Jessica Kenna and her training instructor, Pfc. Courtney Young, a 15-year veteran, then arrived on the scene and helped put Gianelos in handcuffs, police said.

The officers called for a paramedic team to assess an abrasion on Gianelos’s forehead. After the medics arrived, Gianelos suffered a medical emergency and the medics began performing CPR on Gianelos, the release said. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Police said the investigation into the case is ongoing.

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.