Fairfax County Police Watch: 09/13/16

....1,000 to one is an expression, please

DO NOT SEND THE FAIRFAX COUNTY SWAT TEAM HERE TO KILL ME FOR GAMBLING

FOX 5's Marina Marraco reports.

By: Paul Wagner and fox5dc.com staff

WASHINGTON - D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Monday that an officer involved in the deadly shooting of a motorcyclist on Sunday morning was wearing a body camera, but did not turn the camera on to record video footage until after the shooting took place.

D.C. police said Terrence Sterling of Fort Washington, Maryland was seen riding his bike erratically near 17th and U Streets in Adams Morgan at around 4:30 a.m. Sunday. About ten minutes later, Sterling wound up at 3rd and M Streets where he was shot and killed.

However, a witness to the shooting told FOX 5 about a different account of the incident. Kandace Simms said she had just picked up a friend and was sitting in the right-hand lane waiting at the traffic light at 3rd and M Streets.

"So I pulled up to the light and I was there by myself for some time and some cars were coming behind me, but then I saw a motorcycle come on the left of me and then the police car blocked the motorcycle, so they kind of came at the same exact time,” said Simms. “The motorcycle was trying to speed off and drive away, but he couldn't because he was kind of caught in between the sidewalk at the curb and the police car. So the police were trying to open the passenger side door and he couldn't because the motorcycle was right there, and I guess when he couldn't open the door, he rolled down his window and shot twice.”

Simms said her windows were rolled down and she heard no commands coming from the officer in the cruiser. She said she saw the motorcycle strike the cruiser once.

“It did, but that is because they blocked him,” she said. “The police car wasn't right there when I pulled up."

According to Simms, she believes the collision looked unavoidable.

On Sunday morning, D.C. Police Assistant Chief Peter Newsham gave this account to reporters.

"Officers found the vehicle over here at the intersection of 3rd and M Streets, Northwest, which is about a block north of New York Avenue,” he said. “They were able to stop the vehicle. The person who was riding the motorcycle attempted to flee and ended up striking the police car. At that point, shots were fired. The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.”

According to a D.C. Fire and EMS radio broadcast FOX 5 has been able to hear, Sterling was shot in the neck.

At a Monday afternoon news conference, Mayor Bowser said she called the victim’s family to offer her condolences and revealed only the aftermath of the shooting was captured on a police body camera.

"Our preliminary review does not show any camera footage prior to the shooting incident,” Bowser said.

Officers wearing body cameras are under strict orders to turn them on as soon as they begin an encounter with a member of the public.

D.C. police said the officer involved in the shooting did not suffer serious injuries and was placed on administrative leave.

Sterling, 31, had worked for more than a decade as an HVAC technician at a contracting firm. Sterling's mother confirmed to FOX 5 Mayor Bowser had called the family to extend her condolences. She would not say if their family had retained an attorney.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact police at 202-727-9099.

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.