Fairfax County Police Watch: Well, this will fail within 6 month

Chicago gets new agency to investigate police shootings

Aamer Madhani , USA TODAY

CHICAGO – The city council here voted on Wednesday to create a new agency to investigate police shootings and major misconduct allegations, a move that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his allies say is critical to bolstering trust of the embattled Chicago Police Department.

The newly created investigative agency, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), will replace the Independent Police Review Authority. The much-maligned IPRA had been criticized for moving too slow slowly in its investigations and rarely finding wrongdoing by the Chicago cops it investigated.

The ordinance also creates a deputy inspector general’s post to monitor the police department and the oversight system.

The move comes as the city’s police department is in the midst of a Justice Department civil rights investigation launched in December following the court-ordered release of a video that showed a white police officer shoot a black teen 16 times on a city street. The video of the death of Laquan McDonald, 17, set off weeks of protests in the city and put pressure on Emanuel to strengthen oversight of the police department.

“I would consider this the beginning of a journey, not the end,” Emanuel said after the council voted 39-to-8 in favor of the ordinance. “It’s an important step forward on the improvements we all seek.”

The agency is guaranteed minimum funding that is equal to 1% of the police department’s budget excluding grants. COPA is tasked with reviewing all police shootings and allegations of major misconduct by officers, such as verbal abuse, excessive force and physical or psychological coercion.

Some members of the city council were pushing for an alternative ordinance that would have provided more funding for the new agency and deputy inspector general as well as setting out the details for establishing a separate community board that would be tasked with picking the head of COPA. Critics also took aim at a provision in the ordinance that calls for COPA to hire its attorneys from five law firms previously approved by the city’s law department.

Protesters briefly delayed Wednesday's vote, chanting, "Hold the vote," before being ushered out of the chamber.

"This was our chance to get it right the first time…before the U.S. Department of Justice tells us to start over again,” said Alderman Leslie Hariston, who was a co-sponsor of an alternative ordinance. “Such an edict will cost time and precious month. Obviously, Chicago is not read for reform."

The city’s corporation counsel, Steve Patton, said the launch of the new agency would occur in the coming months.

Sharon Fairley, who was appointed to head IPRA following the release of the McDonald video, is expected to serve as an interim director of the new agency.

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.