Fairfax County Police Watch: This is why those low lifes need to have body cameras on them and required to be turned on with ANY interaction.

Ex-Deputy Arrested On 52 Counts After Allegedly Planting Meth On Innocent People

Former Jackson County Sheriff's Deputy Zachary Wester faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Crawfordville, FL – A former Jackson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) deputy has been arrested on multiple counts for allegedly planting methamphetamine on random, innocent motorists while he was working as a law enforcement officer.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) began investigating 26-year-old Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Zachary Wester in August of 2018 at the request of his department, the DFLE said in a press release.

The JCSO requested the probe after a prosecutor noticed that the deputy’s reports were often inconsistent with what appeared on his bodycam – if he turned the recording device on at all, according to The Washington Post.

If his bodycam was activated, it was generally only turned on after he “found” methamphetamine inside of a suspect’s vehicle.

Wester, who comes from a prominent law enforcement family, began working as a deputy in May of 2016, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Over the course of the next two years, the rookie deputy “routinely pulled over citizens for alleged minor traffic infractions, planted drugs inside their vehicles and arrested them on fabricated drug charges,” the FDLE said.

“Wester circumvented JCSO’s body camera policy and tailored his recordings to conceal his criminal activity,” investigators noted.

He generally told the unsuspecting vehicle occupants that he smelled marijuana, which then led to a search of the vehicle, The Washington Post reported.

But instead of “finding” marijuana, he would come out of the vehicles with meth.

“A patrol officer just does not get lucky time and time again under the same circumstances without engaging in a pattern and practice of violating persons’ constitutional rights and/or framing people,” one federal lawsuit filed against the now-former deputy declared, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

Some of the people Wester targeted were guilty of other offenses, such as outstanding warrants or traffic infractions, but many had done nothing wrong, The Washington Post reported.

One man was sentenced to a year in a residential rehabilitation center due to the deputy planting drugs in his car, and another man lost custody of his daughter.

“He’s ruined lives,” a family member of one of the people Wester arrested told the Tallahassee Democrat. “People are losing their lives, their freedom, their children, their marriages — all because of this one man. It’s not just innocent men. It’s innocent children. It goes a lot deeper than everyone realizes.”

At least 119 criminal cases that Wester either initiated or was heavily tied to have been dropped since the probe began, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Sentences for at least eight inmates were vacated, resulting in at least five of the inmates being immediately released from prison, WFAA reported.

Over a dozen people have filed notices of their intent to file lawsuits against the JCSO for their various arrests, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

“There is no question that Wester’s crimes were deliberate and that his actions put innocent people in jail,” said FDLE Pensacola Assistant Special Agent in Charge Chris Williams said in the FDLE press release.

Wester was fired by the JCSO on Sep. 10, 2018, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

On July 10, he was arrested on 52 counts of false imprisonment, racketeering, fabricating evidence, official misconduct, possession of controlled substances, possession of drug paraphernalia, and perjury, according to The Washington Post.

Wester is being held without bond at the Wakulla County Jail, the FDLE said.

“I would like to thank the citizens of Jackson County for their patience during the investigation and my staff for continuing to serve our citizens during this difficult time,” Jackson County Sheriff Lou Roberts said in the press release. “I also appreciate FDLE and the State Attorney’s Office for their commitment to this investigation.”

State Attorney William “Bill” Eddins said that investigators have been unable to determine why Wester carried out the crimes he’s been accused of, The Washington Post reported.

“You’re never certain of what lies in the heart of man,” Eddins said.

The prosecutor noted that Wester faces up to 30 years in prison, and said he has no intention of offering him a plea bargain.

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.