Fairfax County Police Watch: You know who's on the review board? The cops, their union bosses and police brass

Fairfax leaders approve police-review board

Thursday, December 8th, 2016 at 8:26am

Virginia’s largest jurisdiction moved forward Tuesday with creating a civilian board to review allegations of police abuse, joining the District, New York and other major U.S. cities that have taken steps to improve police accountability.

Concerns over police misconduct have spread across the country after a spate of fatal shootings by officers sparked protests and became part of the debates in the presidential election.

Fairfax County, whose Board of Supervisors approved the new civilian panel in a 9-to-1 vote, was motivated to act in the face of sharp criticism over how the county handled the fatal police shooting of an unarmed resident, John Geer, in 2013.

Adam Torres, who was fired from the police force two years after Geer’s death, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the case in April.

The case has prompted the county to pursue $35 million in reform efforts, including the hiring earlier this year of an independent auditor whose job will be to monitor use-of-force investigations. Fairfax officials also are considering requiring police officers to wear body cameras.

“What we’re doing here today is taking another step in making a great police department even better and being a model for the nation in how we continue to enhance trust between our community and the police,” said Sharon Bulova (D), chair of the Board of Supervisors.

Last year, Bulova created a police advisory committee that recommended 202 changes, following public outrage over the county’s initial refusal to share police internal affairs files with the Fairfax prosecutor, Raymond Morrogh (D), while he was investigating the Geer shooting. A county attorney also rejected a request by Morrogh to discuss the case with county supervisors, without informing supervisors of the request.

The nine-member civilian review board will scrutinize police department investigations into allegations of police abuse or misconduct. The board may also refer such allegations to the police department, but, unlike in some other jurisdictions, will not have any authority to investigate cases on its own.

If the board does not agree with the police department’s findings in a particular case, it may request that the supervisors order the county police chief to reopen the investigation.

The lone vote against creating the review panel came from Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, who called the proposal “an act of political correctness.”

Herrity argued that there is already enough police accountability in Fairfax with the department’s internal affairs bureau and the new auditor position. He said creating a new board would be “duplicative,” as the county prepares for another tough budget year, and could hurt morale within the police department.

Supervisor Catherine Hudgins, D-Hunter Mill, pushed unsuccessfully to allow the board to take testimony from witnesses not interviewed by police in an investigation, arguing that such an expansion of powers would help instill deeper trust from residents who are wary of going to the police.

“We were unresponsive before and it was a very, very difficult environment to live in,” she said. “Citizens felt we were not listening, we were not engaged and that we did not want to be engaged.”

After a county attorney told the board that taking in additional evidence outside of an ongoing police investigation could make Fairfax vulnerable to a lawsuit, the supervisors decided to allow those witnesses to submit written testimony that would be turned over to the police.

Bulova said the various police changes being implemented by the county will help Fairfax avoid police shootings leading to injury or death.

“We don’t have very many of those in Fairfax County,” she said. “And we don’t want to have very many of those in Fairfax County.”

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.