Fairfax County Police Watch: In other words, may the public be damned

Fairfax County: Supervisors Review Use of Force Guidelines

Public Safety Committee meets before June 21 vote: gun carry positions, release of information, body cameras discussed.

By Tim Peterson

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is standing by its Chief of Police and his department.

The board’s Public Safety Committee met May 24 to discuss additional questions that lingered or developed following its May 10 meeting to review recommendations for updating and improving the ways Fairfax County Police handle use of force situations and communications.

At that meeting and this latest one, the supervisors reviewed language that will become an action item — along with a matrix of recommendations, estimated costs and implementation statuses from the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission and Police Executive Research Forum — for the board to vote on on June 21.

Deputy County Executive and former Chief of Police David Rohrer said he’s working on converting the text. It should be ready for the board to review, prior to the vote, by June 7.

Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) began the discussion with a question from a constituent regarding how police are trained to aim guns at or around a person’s center mass.

Lt. Brian Ruck from the Fairfax County Police Department gave a brief demonstration of the “ready gun,” “tac [tactical] ready” and “modified ready” carry positions using a blue fake firearm.

“It’s all about angles, so I can see the offender,” Ruck said, while raising and lowering his arms slightly to differentiate between the specified positions.

Ruck also demonstrated how officers are taught to keep their trigger finger on the frame of the handgun and off the trigger until the moment they intent to fire at their target.

“They need to articulate an immediate threat, a reasonable threat,” he said.

Supervisor Kathy Smith (D-Sully) expressed concern that a pilot for body cameras on police officers might not move forward until next year: “I’d hate to see us wait that long to do deal with this.”

Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee) said one of the concerns with not moving forward yet had been legislation in the Virginia General Assembly on body cameras. “We don’t know what the state’s going to do,” McKay said.

Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) expanded that being on the “bleeding edge” versus “cutting edge” of the technology might not be in the county’s best interests.

Supervisor Penny Gross (D-Mason) acknowledged her rare agreement with Herrity in this instance. “We could be bleeding a lot of taxpayer money if we get ahead of the law,” Gross said.

Phillip Niedzielski-Eichner, chairman of the Ad Hoc commission Use of Force subcommittee, brought up the recommendation that every police officer be required to have an Electronic Control Weapon (or taser) on their person while on patrol. Currently it’s only optional, he said.

Chief of Police Edwin Roessler said the department is “moving toward that goal,” and confirmed that every officer certified to use the weapon may carry one at their discretion.

There was little additional conversation on tasers from the supervisors.

Merni Fitzgerald, chair of the Ad Hoc commission communications subcommittee, spoke about the need for a community engagement team as a formal way to make sure there’s “back and forth” exchange with the public and the police department.

Roessler responded that his department has recently applied for a Department of Justice grant that would help fund such a team.

Also during the communications discussion over release of information following an officer-involved incident, Smith said she was concerned about language for the action item. Roessler has said he needs up to 10 days following the incident to conduct a thorough threat assessment for the officer and his or her family.

The way the item reads, Smith said, the supervisors would be able to overturn that action by the chief and force the release of an officer’s name sooner.

“No one’s saying the board would overturn that,” Chairman Sharon Bulova said. But, she said, “the board needs to be given latitude to have a discussion.”

Supervisor John Cook (R-Braddock), chairman of the Public Safety Committee, expanded on Bulova’s comment. “The public needs to know it’s our job to come out of closed session, get in front of a camera and say it was the chief’s decision and we’re backing up the chief,” Cook said. “The chief had a recommendation, we were briefed on it. It’s a public obligation.”

The next meeting of the Public Safety Committee is scheduled for July 19.

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.