Fairfax County Police Watch: 07/17/17

By Max Smith

WASHINGTON — Fairfax County moved forward Tuesday with a new police civilian review panel that aims to ensure citizen complaints about officers are properly investigated.

The county’s board of supervisors approved bylaws for the nine-member panel that was appointed in February, and the panel can now begin full operations.

The bylaws limit the group to reviewing completed internal affairs investigations, and bar the group from hearing any testimony about an incident from additional witnesses beyond those interviewed by police, even during public meetings.

“The problem with that was that if witnesses could present their version of events, but then the officers involved could not, that that would be unfair to the officers,” Supervisor John Cook said.

A person filing a complaint could explain the basis of the complaint to the review panel, and any other witness would be able to tell the review panel why they believe they should be interviewed by police.

“Investigations would be conducted by the police department because they are the ones trained in doing the investigation, and those investigations would be reviewed by the panel,” Cook said.

The panel will have 90 days from the completion of an internal police investigation to hold a public meeting and issue its own final review of the investigation.

“The bottom line is that this panel does not do an investigation. This panel makes sure that an investigation has been accomplished fairly,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said.

The panel is responsible for reviewing public complaints about issues like abuse of authority or officer misconduct that either should be or have been investigated by the police department.

A separate, full-time independent auditor now handles investigations into police shootings and other use of force. Both were established based on recommendations from the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission that was created to identify ways to increase accountability following an outcry over the 2013 shooting death of John Geer in Springfield and the lengthy legal fight over the release of information about the case.

Eventually, the officer who shot Geer pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

The bylaws for the panel are below. Note: supervisors made some additional minor editorial changes that are not reflected

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.