Fairfax County Police Watch: This is an example of the nationwide practice of hiring the immature to guard our laws

Arizona couple files $10M lawsuit after cops allegedly pull guns on family after 4-year-old steals doll

By Nicole Darrah | Fox News

An Arizona couple filed a $10 million lawsuit against the city of Phoenix claiming policeofficers committed civil rights violations after video showed them allegedly pointing guns at the two after their 4-year-old daughter stole a doll from a dollar store last month.

Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, of Phoenix, who filed the legal claim on Wednesday, said that on May 29, they went to a Family Dollar Store with their children, London, 1, and Island, 4. Island, they said, took a doll from the store without their knowledge.

The couple said they drove to their babysitter's apartment complex, when a police car pulled up behind them, pulled open the driver's side door of their car and began shouting profanities at them in front of the kids.

The parents said an officer injured London by pulling on one of her arms after the mother refused a command to put the child down because she said the girl couldn't walk and the pavement was hot, and also said Ames was injured by police who erroneously claimed he wasn't complying with their commands after Ames exited the vehicle that the family was traveling in.

An officer is accused of throwing Ames against a vehicle, kicking his leg so hard that Ames collapsed and punching him for no reason. The claim said one of the officers profanely told Ames in front of his children that he was going to shoot him in the face.

Video posted online seemingly shows officers yelling, "Get your f---ing hands up" and "you're gonna get f---ing shot!"

"My hands are up! My hands are up!" 22yo Dravon Ames says as a Phoenix police officer yells to "get your fucking hands up." The same officer later says "You're gonna fucking get shot!"

Ames says the officers stopped him after his child walked out of a Dollar Store with a doll.

Phoenix Police Department Chief Jeri Williams said on Friday that she began an internal investigation as soon as she found out what was happening.

"I, like you, am disturbed by the language and the actions of our officer. I assure you that this incident is not representative of the majority of Phoenix police officers who serve this city," Williams said.

The police department claims the incident happened on May 27, and described a different version of events. While the parents' attorney said the child and father were injured in the encounter, police said no injuries were reported to them.

Police, in a Facebook post on Saturday, also said there were other stolen items in the vehicle during the encounter besides the doll.

The department said an officer was at the dollar store on an unrelated shoplifting call when store employees told him about another shoplifting complaint and directed him toward a vehicle that was leaving the parking lot as the officer approached. The officer had told Ames, who was driving the vehicle, to stop, but he didn't, police said.

Another woman who was inside the vehicle was dropped off at another location before the family reached the apartment complex. She had three outstanding misdemeanor warrants and was booked, police said.

Police said Harper, the mother of the two children, remained in the vehicle and later explained that she believed one of her daughters had stolen the doll because they didn't have any money.

Both parents were handcuffed and detained inside police vehicles, but they were eventually released, Tom Horne, an attorney representing the family, said.

No one was charged with shoplifting because the property was returned, and store employees didn't want the case prosecuted, police said. But Ames was given a traffic citation for driving on a suspended license.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said in a statement that she's "sick over what I have seen in the video depicting Phoenix police interacting with a family and young children." She called the situation "completely inappropriate and clearly unprofessional."

The mayor added the city is "speeding up" the use of police body cameras. "Every single precinct will have body-worn cameras by August," she said.

Rapper Jay-Z's "Team Roc" has reached out to the family to provide legal support, and has called for the police officers involved to be fired.

The officers involved have since been assigned to desk duty as the department investigates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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.