Fairfax County Police Watch: s long as we keep hiring the bottom of the barrel to police the nation, this sort of thing will continue

Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot black man is FIRED over unrelated sexual assault charges stemming from rape of male bar patron

Now-former police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown was arrested last week in Milwaukee

Accused of sexually assaulting unidentified man while off-duty August 15

Sex complaint was made two days after Heaggan-Brown fatally shot Sylville Smith, 23

Police say Smith was holding a gun but his death sparked mass protests

Rape victim told investigators Heaggan-Brown bragged he was the boss while drinking at a bar and watching TV coverage of the protests

He said he drank too much, passed out and woke up feeling drugged to find Heaggan-Brown sexually assaulting him

Heaggan-Brown later texted a mentor that he had messed up 'big time' and claimed the sex was consensual

Using phone data, investigators determined that Heaggan-Brown offered two other people money for sex several times last year

He also allegedly sexually assaulted and photographed an unconscious, naked person

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 12:12 EST, 1 November 2016 | UPDATED: 12:40 EST, 1 November 2016

A Milwaukee police officer who sparked violent protests over the summer after fatally shooting a black man was fired Monday, after he had been charged with sexually assaulting a bar patron and another person.

Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown was terminated as a result of the department's internal investigation into the sexual assault charges, according to a statement from Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn.

Heaggan-Brown was ordered last week to stand trial on five charges, including two counts of second-degree sexual assault, in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

Heaggan-Brown fatally shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith in August on Milwaukee's north side, which sparked a weekend of violence in the Sherman Park neighborhood not far from where Smith was killed.

The 24-year-old officer was later accused of sexually assaulting two men and soliciting sex from two suspected male prostitutes.

One of the men told police he watched news coverage of the August violence while at a bar with Heaggan-Brown a day after the officer fatally shot Smith. The man also alleged Heaggan-Brown bragged about being able to do whatever he wanted without repercussions.

Flynn said Heaggan-Brown was fired because he was found to be in violation of the department's code of conduct, which in part said ‘whether on or off duty, department members shall not behave in such a way that a reasonable person would expect that discredit could be brought upon the department, or that it would create the appearance of impropriety or corruptive behavior.’

Heaggan-Brown remained jailed on $100,000 bond and was expected to be arraigned in court Friday.

The alleged victim, unidentified in a criminal complaint, told police on August 15 that Heaggan-Brown had sexually assaulted him while off duty.

Heaggan-Brown fatally shot Sylville Smith on August 13. Police said Smith was brandishing a gun when he was shot after a brief chase.

According to the criminal complaint, Heaggan-Brown took the victim to a bar late on the night of August 14 where they drank heavily and watched TV as coverage of the protests aired.

The victim told investigators that Heaggan-Brown bragged that he was the boss and that there were 'no limitations' on how he lived and that he could do whatever he wanted 'without repercussions.'

The victim told police the day after the alleged assault that he had trouble remembering everything that happened after they left the bar, but that he felt drugged.

He said he woke up to Heaggan-Brown sexually assaulting him.

The complaint said Heaggan-Brown took the man to St. Joseph's Hospital early on August 15. The officer told a security guard who helped him wheel the man inside that the man had had too much to drink and was 'completely out, zonked out of his gourd.'

But when nurses began providing aid, the man 'flipped out,' grabbed a security guard's arm and exclaimed: 'He raped me, he raped me,' indicating Heaggan-Brown.

Later that morning, Heaggan-Brown texted his mentor, Sgt. Joseph Hall, saying he had messed up 'big time.'

'Need your help big time. ... But need to handle this the most secret and right way possible,' the text read in part. The sergeant told investigators that Heaggan-Brown claimed the sex was consensual.

Flynn said Thursday that Hall reported his contact with Heaggan-Brown to command staff but the sergeant is under internal investigation as well. Hall remains on duty.

'We're going to get to the bottom of what that exchange was about,' Flynn said.

Using photographs and other data from the officer's cellphone, the complaint said, investigators determined that Heaggan-Brown offered two other people money for sex several times — in December 2015 and in July and August of this year — and that he sexually assaulted another unconscious person in July, and photographed that victim naked without that person's consent.

The charges include two felony counts of second-degree sexual assault, two misdemeanor prostitution counts and one felony count of capturing an intimate representation of a person without consent.

The head of Milwaukee's police union said in a statement that the facts of the case will dictate the outcome.

'The MPA condemns all criminal behavior by any member of society, whether part of this organization or not,' the union's president, Mike Crivello, said in the statement.

Heaggan-Brown joined the police department in July 2010 as an aide.

Smith's death set off several nights of protests in Milwaukee. Above, police move in on a crowd throwing rocks in Milwaukee on August 14, while Haeggan-Brown was watching tv coverage with the alleged victim

Like Smith, the man who was fatally shot, Heaggan-Brown is black. He was assigned to patrol the city's heavily minority north side.

Flynn has said that Smith was fleeing from a traffic stop when he was shot. Heaggan-Brown's body camera showed that Smith was shot after he turned toward an officer with a gun in his hand, according to investigators.

Smith's death sparked two nights of violence in the Sherman Park neighborhood, with several businesses burned. It also ramped up long-festering racial tension in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice investigated Smith's death and has turned the case over to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm for a charging decision. It's not clear when a decision in that case will be made.

Flynn said Thursday that none of the alleged sexual assault victims are connected to Smith's family.

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.