Fairfax County Police Watch: Hero's my ass

Daniel Shaver, unarmed man killed by Arizona police officer, cried and begged for life before shooting

Unarmed man killed by Arizona cop cried, begged for life

NY Daily News

BYJASON SILVERSTEIN

Updated: Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 2:49 PM

An unarmed man who was shot and killed by an Arizona police officer in January cried, complied with police orders and begged for his life before the fatal firing, according to a newly released police report.

Mesa Police Officer Philip Brailsford has been charged with second-degree murder for the death of Daniel Shaver, a 26-year-old Texas man. Authorities have declined to release Brailsford’s body cam footage from the deadly encounter.

But a report released Tuesday includes extensive description of the footage, detailing Shaver’s desperate final moments before Brailsford fired five shots at him with an AR-15 rifle.

Police confronted Shaver January 8 after responding to reports of a man pointing a rifle out the fifth-floor window of a La Quinta hotel.

The night of his death, Shaver had invited a man and woman at the hotel to his room for drinks, according to the report.

After some shots of rum, the man asked Shaver about a case that appeared to hold a musical instrument. Shaver opened it to reveal a pellet gun and dead sparrow inside. Shaver told them he was on a business trip with Wal-Mart and “his job is to kill all of the birds that get inside the buildings,” according to the report.

Shaver then briefly pointed the pellet gun out the window.

When police found Shaver, they warned him that he “may not survive” if he did anything that could be considered a threat, the report says.

Brailsford’s body cam shows Shaver appeared to making small jerking motions while he had his hands behind his back, according to the report.

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An officer yelled at him, “If you do that again, we are shooting you. Do you understand?”

“No, please don’t shoot me,” Shaver said.

At one point, Shaver’s hand appeared to move toward his waist. An officer was heard yelling, “Don’t,” before Brailsford fired.

Shaver was not armed. His hand motion appeared to be him “attempting to pull his shorts up as they were falling off,” the report says.

Previous reports have indicated Shaver may have been drunk at the time of the shooting — despite telling officers he was not — and possibly did not understand police orders. Shaver’s autopsy report has not been released.

Brailsford was charged with second-degree murder and fired from the department. The new report reveals Brailsford had etched on his rifle: “You’re F---ed.”

Shaver’s widow and the mother of his two girls, Laney Sweet, posted a YouTube video Tuesday saying prosecutors are considering a plea deal for the ex-cop. The Maricopa County Attorney has not commented on the case.

Texas police officer fired for excessive force in shooting death of naked, unarmed teenager David Joseph

BY NICOLE HENSLEY

Austin police Officer Geoffrey Freeman had an array of tools to subdue a naked and unarmed 17-year-old boy without lethal force, but instead, he drew his firearm and shot David Joseph.

The Austin Police Department fired Freeman, 41, Monday afternoon in response to the February shooting that killed David — a Connally High School senior and son of an immigrant mother from Haiti — for violating its excessive force policies.

“Officer Freeman’s decision to draw his weapon when he exited his vehicle was unwarranted,” Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo wrote in a memo detailing Freeman’s disciplinary action for violating the Civil Service Commission rules.

Acevedo listed Freeman’s baton, stun gun, pepper spray, a bean bag shot gun stashed in the trunk and even physical force as ways to stop David without lethal force.

It’s unclear if Freeman, a 10-year veteran of the Austin force, will face criminal charges related to the Feb. 8 shooting. He has 10 days to appeal Acevedo’s decision.

“My family is glad to hear that Officer Freeman will not hurt any other unarmed black men,” David’s brother,Fally Joseph, said in a statement to KXAN-TV. “When he took my brother away from us, he stole something no one can ever give us back. We are glad to know that the City of Austin thinks David’s life mattered, and that Officer Freeman will not be on the streets again.”

Freeman encountered the teen — nicknamed by friends “Pronto” — running around a street at 10:25 a.m., blocks from David’s home in the city’s northern suburbs. Following several complaints from residents, the young black subject — clothed at the time — had been harassing residents, even chasing a man.

“Sounds like this guy could either be, he’s 10-86 (subject with mental illness) and losing it or high or something,” Freeman told dispatch.

Instead of waiting for additional officers per department policy when engaging with “subjects displaying symptoms of substance-induced excited delirium,” Freeman approached David alone. He stopped his cruiser within 90 feet of David and got out of the vehicle drawing his weapon.

David then charged Freeman, refusing to stop despite commands and within 6.7 seconds, the cop fired at least one gunshot, striking David out of sight from the cruiser’s dash cam footage. Backup wouldn’t arrive for another minute and a half.

An autopsy found no trace of gunpowder on David’s body meaning the teenager and Freeman were separated by several feet at the time of the shooting.

Additionally, a toxicology report determined David had traces of Xanax, anti-histamines and marijuana in his system, his family told KXAN-TV, but the results conflicted with Freeman’s belief David was experiencing excited delirium.

“No one was under a threat of imminent harm or suffering serious bodily injury or death by Mr. David,” Acevedo determined.

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.