Fairfax County Police Watch: The Fairfax County Police need more time to learn to stop killing citizen

Fairfax Co. leaders press for patience on police overhaul

By Max Smith | @amaxsmith

FAIRFAX, Va. — Nearly three years after John Geer was shot and killed by a police officer in his Springfield home, and weeks after that officer pleaded guilty, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors took up recommendations for changes to use of force and transparency.

Community members said Fairfax County police mishandled the release of information regarding the 2013 shooting of John Geer, which created many of the concerns discussed Tuesday, said Tom Wilson of the Police Executive Research Forum.

Wilson’s group and a county commission, formed in the wake of Geer’s death, have made dozens of recommendations to the county that are being worked through by the board over the next year.

Only 7 percent of the recommendations have been completed.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova understands that votes on use of force policies and transparency next month may not appear to be coming soon enough, but joins other supervisors in backing more deliberate action.

“The public feels that we’re taking too much time,” Bulova said. “However, these are weighty issues, and we don’t want to look back a year or two or more and say we were too hasty and that we made bad decisions. This is important stuff.”

Tuesday’s committee meeting, and expected votes in late June, focus on communication and use of force.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said oversight of investigations and release of information that he is allowed to share ethically could help turn things around.

“I feel public confidence is on the wane,” he said.

His office was set to take former Fairfax County police officer Adam Torres to trial for the murder of John Geer, but Torres agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Even though many suggestions to the county remain outstanding, the chair of the ad hoc police commission’s use of force subcommittee, Phil Niedzielski-Eichner, praised Police Chief Ed Roessler for progress in many areas.

Supervisor John Foust said Roessler is making changes that at least will help public perception.

“I see a change, so we can argue about whether it was always this way or not, but I think it was a great police force, I think you’re doing some things that are going to make it better,” Foust said.

The county does not plan to immediately address some other commission recommendations, like police body cameras or changes to freedom of information laws.

Sean Corcoran of the Fairfax Coalition of Police Local 5000 said while the much-trumpeted new training is great, it is not a major shift.

“I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble, but I see absolutely nothing new here,” he said. “This is fundamentals in communication, these are fundamentals in what we expect of our officers, there’s nothing that I haven’t been hearing for 15 years in this department and beyond that.”

Officers’ representatives questioned recommendations from PERF and the ad hoc commission to release the names of officers involved in deadly incidents within a week, raising concerns about potential threats to officers.

He also questioned the emphasis on proportional use of force.

“This is not some sort of choreographed fight scene from a Hollywood movie. If somebody makes that choice that they’re going to take that route and the officer or the officers have to use force, it needs to be definitive, it needs to be overwhelming, and they need to take care of it and get it done as soon as possible and resolve the situation as quickly as possible, because the longer we delay these things, that’s when injuries occur,” Corcoran said.

While there is public pressure to move forward with recommendations, both from members of the commission and others in the public who attended Tuesday’s committee meeting, Supervisor Pat Herrity is concerned that six police department command staff are spending the majority of their time working to address the recommendations.

“I think we need to move this stuff forward, but I don’t want to have this become the obsession when we’re dealing with heroin issues, human trafficking issues, crimes against the elderly issues, [etc.],” Herrity said.

Roessler says the department is doing new training and other changes so far within the approved budget.

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.