Fairfax County Police Watch: JOHN OLIVER SAYS POLICE ARE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE EVEN LESS THAN WE REALIZE

BY RYAN BORT

CULTUREJOHN OLIVERLAST WEEK TONIGHT

John Oliver is no stranger to law enforcement...or at least not to covering it on Last Week Tonight. Most recently, he delved into why police are so rarely held accountable for their actions, after earlier taking on civil forfeiture, police militarization, municipal violations and mandatory minimum prison sentences.

While there have been thousands of fatal police shootings since 2005, only 77 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter in that time, and only 26 were convicted. The numbers are staggering, but just as astonishing is how difficult it is to ascertain these sorts of statistics. In 2015, FBI Director James Comey spoke of the lack of information available about our police. "We don't have data," he said at an FBI oversight committee hearing. "People have data about who went to a movie last weekend or how many books were sold or how many cases of the flu walked into an emergency room, and I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year or anything about the demographics."

Who does track statistics on police misconduct? According to Oliver, it's a researcher named Philip Stinson, who accumulated data by setting up 48 Google alerts in 2005.

Police simply aren't held accountable for their actions the way others with jobs of such high importance are scrutinized. As Oliver explained Sunday night, there are several reasons for this. One is that police misconduct is typically investigated internally, by other police officers, which could be considered something of a conflict of interest. You want examples?

The Department of Justice reported that in Cleveland, "investigators told us that they intentionally cast an officer in the best light possible when investigating the officer’s use of deadly force." In Miami, an investigation took so long, “at least two…officers shot and killed a suspect while still under investigation for a previous [shooting].” In Baltimore, an officer who reported misconduct was relentlessly harassed by his fellow officers, to the point where they weren't even sending him backup when he requested it. They also left pictures of cheese on his desk and a dead rat on his windshield.

It is also remarkably easy for officers to wipe clean any evidence of previous misconduct, and to do so legally. In some precincts, records can be thrown out after a certain amount of time elapses. A Mesa, Arizona police chief even instructed his officers to “purge your files according to policy." As Oliver notes, "This seems wrong."

Basically, the system is far more insular than it should be, and it is designed to protect police officers from themselves. The justice system only bolsters their relative immunity to recourse. It is incredibly awkward for prosecutors to go after police officers, because the former usually have close relationships with the latter, relying on them to give advice and analyze evidence. If a case against an officer ever does go to trial, which is very rare, the juries are predisposed to give officers the benefit of the doubt. Despite recent events, it's difficult for anyone to override the idea that police officers are trustworthy figures on a noble pursuit to protect and serve.

Again, out of thousands of fatal police shootings, only 77 officers went to trial and only 26 were convicted.

So what can be done? Body cameras, for one. As Oliver points out, police in Rialto, California, saw complaints against officers fall 88 percent and use of force fall 60 percent after one year of using body cameras. They have been so successful, in fact, that officers in Baltimore were reluctant to hand them in after a trial run came to an end. As Oliver says, “These cops aren’t M. Night Shyamalan. If they plead with you to let them have a camera again, you should give it to them.”

Other options to heighten accountability that have been tested include forcing officers to file separate reports when force is used and bringing in outside prosecutors. However it's done, it is imperative that officers are held accountable for their actions. As Oliver says, “A lack of trust in police accountability leads to a lack of trust in police."

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.