"We do not want a police
state, but we need a state of law and order, and neither mob violence nor
police brutality have any place in America." Hubert H. Humphrey
On July 16, 1957, a 62-year-old
man named Elmer Sours watched a car fly out of control and hit a tree. Sours ran to the car and told the driver to
sit still until help arrived, and then stayed with the victim. Witnesses say
that a cop, age 26, arrived on the scene and shoved Sours from behind, knocking
him away from the car, pushed him on to the ground and handcuffed him.
The cop lied to the judge and said that Sours
refused to move from the scene but the ambulance crew said that Sours was 15
feet from the accident and moved another ten feet when the cop screamed at him
to move back. The judge acquitted Sours
and criticized the cops conduct. A day
later, two cops were speeding across the county and turned their car over.
On August 14, 2955, the 19-year old
son of a Falls Church Dentist was sitting in a car with a friend, acting
loudly, as teenage boys tend to do. A
Fairfax County cop, without warning, came over to the car and punched the boy
in the face. According to police, the
boy and his friends then beat the cop up.
The cops dropped the case before it went to court.
On November 7, 1963, a Fairfax
County cop was accused of tossing 17-year-old boy in the back seat of his
cruiser, handcuffing him and slapping him repeatedly. Then he arrested him on traffic charges. He slapped the boy in the presence of at
least a dozen cops and citizens. The
cops did nothing to stop him but two of the witnesses, one was a Justice of the
Peace, reported the assault. The police
investigated and in light of overwhelming evidence, found the cop guilty and
suspended him for two weeks with pay but made the suspension retroactive,
meaning the time he had been sent home while the case was investigated would
serve as his punishment. The cop said he
didn’t punch the boy over and over again, but had only pushed him.
YEAH, WE’RE PRETTY MUCH GONNA DO
WHATEVER THE HELL WE WANT TO DO…AND WE’LL GET AWAY WITH IT.
On August 14, 1979, witnesses
watched as a gang of Fairfax County Police clubbed a hand cuffed man they had
arrested for drunk driving. The man, who
was recently released from the hospital for a gall bladder operation, was bent
over a fence and punched in the face by officers and then slammed on to the
hood of his car.
A month later…..at public expense….the Fairfax
County Police launched a public relations campaign to improve their image. The cops had already killed two unarmed and
innocent civilians that year.
Making matters worse, of the 95
complaints filed against the cops by the people of Fairfax County, the cops and
the cops alone determined that only 27 of the 95 complaints were worth
investigating. Only one cop was
suspended…for one day without pay.
Another received an oral reprimand.
That same month, outraged
citizens formed a group called Fairfax Citizens for Improved Law
Enforcement. The group issued a public
statement that it opposed the police plan to create a citizen’s advisory group
which it called "Window dressing".
The few people in the county, who
support the police version of a powerless advisory committee, were, almost
needless to say, the board of supervisors….who shared office with the
police. To appease the public, in
February, fourteen elected representatives from Fairfax County launched an
investigation into racism and brutality by the Fairfax County Police
department.
The officials promised that they would examine
the unusual deaths of three healthy men within six months of being held in the
county jail and the men’s accusation of police brutality while they were
held. After the first day of publicity
photos, the group was never heard from again and the cops went on doing what
they wanted.
AMAZINGLY ENOUGH THE COPS DON’T
KEEP TRACK OF THE PEOPLE THEY BET UP
In 1991, the Fairfax County
Police announced that the department does not compile data on police brutality
complaints and that it has decided that all matters pertaining to police
personnel are protected by the States secrecy laws and it does not have to
share any information with the general public….so there.
MOW THAT LOUD AGAIN AND WE’LL
KILL YOU
“Whoever fights monsters should
see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Friedrich
Nietzsche
On May 22, 1980: At 11:00 PM,
police responded to a call about a man mowing his lawn. An argument broke out and one of the two cops
beat the man to the ground with his flash light. A second cop was also accused of holding the
man while he was being beaten, but…and despite witness testimony…the second cop
denied he was present for the beating.
The man’s nose, rib, and hand were fractured in the beating. The man sued in federal court. The Taxpayers paid and the mice that make up
the board of supervisors said and did nothing.
By 2010, the Fairfax County
Police have been named as a defendant in over 200 court cases in less than
twenty years.
HOW BAD DOES IT HAVE TO BE WHEN
THE TEAMSTERS THINK YOU’RE A THUG?
"When the police are
indistinguishable from the bad guys, then society has a serious problem."
Lynne Abraham
May 21, 1985 Two Fairfax County
cops moonlighting as security at a local cement manufacturing company assault
striking workers who were standing on public property. The Teamster International calls the attack
"A stunning case of blatant police brutality"
NOW HERE’S A SURPRISE……………..
On April 19, 1981 a Washington
Post feature story runs with the lead in headline "Fairfax Police: Highest
Number of Misconduct Charges in Suburbs"
On September 27, 1980 four
citizens watched what they called "police brutality" when a Fairfax
County cop beat a man into submission with a flashlight after he resisted
arrest.
The cop demanded that the on
lookers assist him in the arrest, they refused, out of fear of the cop
"might turn his flash light on us".
Police later traced one of the on lookers by
his license plate and eight hours after the incident, went to his home and
arrested him for refusing to assist the cop.
It is, to anyone recollection or recorded history, the first time in the
Washington area that a citizen was arrested for refusing to partake in an
arrest.
I DON’T CARE WHAT IT COSTS, I
DON’T LIVE HERE
“One of the saddest lessons of
history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any
evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth.
The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to
ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you
almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan
1972: The cost to operate the
county police, fire services, courts, and welfare services was
$69,000,000. By 2010, the police budget
alone will exceed $150,000,000
In 2008 the average salary for a
cop in Fairfax County was about $86,000. (That same year crime was up in the
county by 6%)
THE LORDS OF THE PUBLIC DOLE
TAKETH AND….TAKETH
In January 1975 the County
Supervisors ordered the cops to cut back spending by 3%. The cops responded that “it will consider the
cuts” but that they, the police, are "still in the discussion stage"
and informed the board of supervisors that if other departments in the county
cut their budgets first, the police might not have to reduce their
spending. The county was facing a $13 to
$23 million dollar deficit and ordered all department, not only the police, to
reduce spending by 3%.
In 1984 the police department
requested almost $25,000 for shoes for its cops. The department argued that since the county
pays for the officers uniforms it should pay for their shoes as well.
The police entered county
politics in 2009. Facing unprecedented
cuts in public safety jobs and programs due to a $650 million budget shortfall,
the Fairfax County police union hired a consultant and commissioned a poll of
likely voters. Their hope was to use the results to convince county supervisors
that residents would rather spend tax dollars on fighting gangs and keeping
unsafe vehicles off the road than on parks and libraries. The survey costs the union $30,000.
In 1996 the annual police
overtime costs to the county exceeded $9,000,000 among less than 800
officers. By 2008, Fairfax County cops
base salaries range from about $45,000 to $81,631. Sergeants were paid a minimum base of about
$74,000 and a maximum of $85,713, though some cop and sergeants earn more by
working overtime.
FREEBIES
It wasn’t until 1966 that Fairfax
County Police officially stopped taking “Discounts” on free food. At Tops Drive in chain, the cops got a 50%
discount on their orders.
THE ROYAL ENTITLEMENT AIR FORCE
In 1991, it was reported that the
Fairfax County Police Air force of four helicopters was costing county
taxpayers $4,000 a day and required 17 full time employees (Other reports put
it at 18 employees) to keep it flying.
At that point, the Fairfax County Police had one fewer helicopter than
the entire Virginia State Police yet it averaged only a one-day use as a backup
ambulance service and assisted in a few arrests each month.
In the midst of their military
escalation, the cops complained that they were understaffed “in critical areas”
but refused to reassign even one of the 18 helicopter crewmembers to those
areas.
The District of Columbia is the
only other police department in the region that has a helicopter but its use is
strenuously restricted to the business of policing. However, the always publicity conscious
Fairfax County Police Department was quick to line up free photographs and demo
rides for school children with their fleet.
The Air Force was always used to
give a retired cop a joy ride and fly high-level cops out to county paid
conferences in nearby West Virginia The
police go their first $3,000,000 for two helicopters in 1982, (plus an
additional $378,000 for pilot training) the same year that the County limited
teacher’s salaries to a 3% increase.
On August 24, 1993, the cops
crashed one of their chopters in an almost comical mishap; the police pilot and
the co-pilot and the ground crew forgot to unplug the million and half dollar
copter from a battery unit on the ground.
In November of 1993, after no opposition from county supervisors, (I
know, that’s a given, but I felt I should point it out anyway), the cop spent
$1.5 million to replace the crashed helicopter.
WHY GO THROUGH A WHOLE CAREER
WITH ONLY BEATING SOMEONE WHEN YOU CAN KILL THEM TOO?
October 26, 1993, a Fairfax cop
shot and killed Jesus B. Arreaga, in a stairwell at the Meadow Woods apartment
complex, because the cops saw the handle of knife Arreaga had in his waistband,
mistook it for a gun and shot him.
Because as we all know, a knife handle looks almost exactly like a gun
handle. I think we can suspend reality
and agree on that for a moment.
WE WILL KILL YOU TO KEEP YOU FROM
KILLING YOURSELF
On November 3, 1993, a man was
threatening to kill himself with a knife after a domestic dispute, so the cops
shot and killed him. It’s that simple
.It was the fifth time that year and the second time in the last week that
county police have been involved in a shooting.
SHOOT FIRST, LIE LATER
From 2005 through 2010, nine
people were killed in Fairfax County police-involved shootings. Twelve people have been wounded.
OUR POLICY ON DEALING WITH THE
MENTALLY ILL? KILL THEM
“A recent police study found that
you're much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.” Dennis Miller
Ian Smith, Herndon man who was
shot by a Fairfax County police even though he was known by police to be
severely mentally ill. When the cops
gunned him down, he was wielding a plastic replica of a pistol with a red tip
on the end of it. The cops were close
enough to see that it was a toy because he was gunned down at very close range,
close enough to leave burn marks on his clothes.
In 1972, the Fairfax County
Police started using hollow tipped Dum-Dum bullets that expand inside their
victim s bodies, almost assuring death.
By the rules of international treaty, the US Military has not used the bullets
since 1900.
“It is easier to commit murder
than to justify it.” Aemilius Papinianus
The entire affair still smells
bad. In January of 2006, the Fairfax
County Police SWAT team shot and killed an unarmed optometrist named Salvatore
Culosi while they were arresting him for suspicion of sports gambling.
A Fairfax County detective said
overheard Culosi wagering on a college football game at a bar. That in itself
seems strangely coincidental. The cop
said he then befriended Culosi. During the next several months he talked Culosi
into raising the stakes on friendly wagers. The cop pushed the betting up to
one single bet of $2,000 in a single day, enough to charge him with running a
gambling operation.
On January 24, 2006, the cop
called Culosi and arranged a time to come by his house and collect his
winnings. A few hours later, a barefoot Culosi stepped out of his house to meet
the cop and was shot dead.
The cop who killed Culosi, a 17
year veteran of being on the public payroll and trained at taxpayers’ expense
in firearms and tactics, said that when he jumped from his car, the car door
bounced back, striking him in the side and causing him to pull the trigger.
Let me repeat that. The cop who
killed Culosi, a 17 year veteran of being on the public payroll and trained at
taxpayers’ expense in firearms and tactics, said that when he jumped from his
car, the car door bounced back, striking him in the side and causing him to
pull the trigger.
The shot went directly through
Culosi's heart. So what the police wanted the public to believe, and the story
that they still abide by, was that the cops fired a shot by mistake that went
directly through the victim’s heart. Vegas wouldn’t cover those odd.
The killing may have been
unintentional but it was certainly negligent. There was absolutely no reason
the cop should have had his hand on the guns trigger or had the weapon pointed
at Culosi.
However there are some who
question whether the shooting was in fact unintentional at all. The cops were placing bets with Culosi that
much was certain but for how long? And how many cops were placing bets with
him? How much did they owe him?
But why the cops used a SWAT team
to arrest a gambler they we replacing bets with is still unknown. Culosi, who
had no criminal record; had never owned a firearm; and presented no threat of
violence, flight, or resisting arrest.
At the hospital, the cops stopped
a nurse from notifying Culosi’s parents that they had killed their son. Instead
the cops waited for five hours before calling the family to tell them that they
had shot their son dead over a highly suspicious gambling arrest.
The cops finally admitted that
using a SWAT team to arrest a suspected sports gambler was unnecessary and that
they could have used "lower-risk, less complex arrest techniques”. To which the entire nation replied “Well duh”
In the months that followed, the
detective who set Culosi badgered Culosi's friends and family. He took their
names and numbers from the dead man’s cell phone and computer.
Culosi's brother-in-law, told The
Washington Post that the cop called him
and menacingly asked, "How much are you into Sal for?"
A lifelong friend of Culosi's,
said that the cop called him and accused him of being a gambler. The calls,
Gulley told the paper, smacked of intimidation aimed at discouraging a lawsuit.
Arrogant and angry at being
questioned in a county they virtually own, the Fairfax County police department
is notorious for declining virtually every request for information from the
media and anyone else. It took the police one year to release its investigation
results to Culosi's family. And that was
done only after legal action was taken to make them provide the information to
the family.
With the eyes of the world on
them, the police said it would “conduct a review of policies and procedures
involving” the use of SWAT teams in making arrest. If they made the review, which is doubtful,
they never made it public.
The killer cops name was released
to the public only because the The Washington Post's Tom Jackman reported it
based on a tip from a confidential source.
The Culosi family suspected that
the cop mistook the cell phone Culosi had in his hand for a pistol and shot the
young man dead. The family hired their
own investigators to exam the case. He concluded that based on the police
department's own measurements of the crime scene, when the cop pulled the
trigger he was away from his vehicle and much closer to Culosi than he had
claimed.
Worse for the cop, by using the
recorded locations of shell casings, police vehicles, and Culosi's body, the
detectives produced computer animations showing that the incident could not
have happened the way Rohrer said it.
And yet Rohrer was never disciplined.
The cop who shot him was demoted
from the SWAT team and suspended without pay for three weeks. As lenient as the
punishment was, the police union objected. They felt the punishment was going
overboard. The union said that the punishment "may be politically
motivated because of all the media attention" and that the suspension was
"way off the charts" and that an oral or written reprimand would have
been more appropriate
Robert F. Horan Jr., the chief prosecutor and
the best friend the Fairfax County Police ever had, declined to prosecute the cop or refer the
case to a grand jury.
Two months after the cops gunned
down the unarmed Culosi, the police
issued a press release warning the people of Fairfax County not to gamble.
The county paid Culosi's family
$2 million to settle a civil lawsuit.
The cop who shot him and the cop who tormented the family afterwards
paid nothing. The taxpayers picked up the bill.
Not a single penny was taken from the police department’s enormous budget. Nothing happened to them. Nothing
changed.
WHY KILL YOURSELF? WE’LL DO IT FOR YOU.
On November 3, 1993, Michael
Cleveland was shot and killed by cops after he threatened to kill himself. It was the fifth time that year and the
second time in the last week that county police have been involved in a
shooting.
July 8, 2008, David Michael
Przewlocki was killed by cops after the police responded to a report of an
apparent suicidal man at Summit Square Drive.
The found Przewlocki outside his apartment on the sidewalk threatening
to kill himself with a gun. So they shot
him dead.
WRITE ANOTHER BAD CHECK AND THE
NEXT TIME WE WON’T MISS.
In July of 1998, a woman named
Diana Elizabeth Tyler wrote a bum check.
(For $ 261.25 to a Lorton antiques store. The check was returned because the bank
account had been closed.)
She didn’t show up for her court
case and on the day in question was stopped by police for erratic driving (On
an expired license). Tyler made a run
for it and sped her 1995 Oldsmobile down Richmond Highway. The chase ended in the parking lot of a
shopping center.
When Tyler, who was unarmed,
refused to leave her car…..the cops said she struggled but Tyler said she
didn’t struggle….the cops shot her in the neck.
The good news (for the cops) was that they got to use one of their
helicopters to fly Tyler to the hospital.
The police were very, very quick
to release Tyler’s name and address to the press but refused to give a single
name of any one of the eight cops involved in the shooting nor would they
explain why Tyler was shot. Warren R.
Carmichael, a Fairfax police spokesman, said the investigation of the police
investigation the police “could take several weeks to complete.”
We don’t know if it took that
long or not. The results of the investigation,
if in fact there was one were never released to the public. Carmichael, however, said "Given the
circumstances of the chase, the fact that weapons may have been drawn is
appropriate" The Board of supervisors said and did nothing.
WRITE A BAD CHECK, WE SHOOT YOU,
STEAL LIKE A COMMON THIEF, WE SUE YOU
On January 13, 1997, reports were
that the Fairfax County Police Association was suing its former president
alleging he spent thousands of dollars on personal items.
KICK IN DOOR FIRST, EXPLAIN
YOURSELF LATER
In October of 1988, cops raided a
house looking for a murder suspect.
After searching the upper portion of the house, they went into the
basement were an elderly couple from the Dominican Republic were renting a single
room. They didn’t speak English.
They were awakened by the cops
kicking in their bedroom door. Not
knowing what to expect, the man grabbed a pistol. The cops shot him in the stomach and killed
his wife, shooting her five times in the throat and face. In all the cops fired 11 shots in a matter of
seconds.
Before they left, the cops
ransacked the room, taking the room’s door with them as evidence. When asked to explain the cops actions, the
chief of police became indignant and told reporters “We’re not going to explain
who did what or who said what” The Board of Supervisors leaped into action and demanded an
investigation of the by the States Attorney General’s office….naw, that didn’t
happen and it never will happen.
AND THEY GAVE THIS GUY A GUN
July 3, 2007, a Fairfax County
cop was arrested and charged assault and burglary for allegedly breaking into
an ex-girlfriend's house and threatening her.
He was also charged with stalking and misuse of a telephone.
The ex-girlfriend said the cop
pursued her relentlessly after their breakup (They had been together less than
four months) and forced her to seek a restraining order against him.
The complaint said that the cop
called her numerous times and at one point, at about 6:30 in the morning, he
"broke into my house and stormed upstairs, (Finding her with an
ex-boyfriend) started yelling at me…. I
kept telling him to get out and that he was acting crazy, and he responded,
"If I were crazy I would have shot you both.
At this point I feel it is important
to state that Rick is a police officer [with] Fairfax County," Mavica
wrote, adding that he was wearing part of his uniform and had his firearm
strapped on.”
He left but attempted to contact
her by calling her cellphone and sending a flurry of text messages with ion
message saying "pick up your phone.
25 cent texts add up quick and I'll send 1,000 today.” The next day, the young woman found the cop
sitting in front of her car. When she
attempted to leave, he began to follow her.
She called 911 and drove to a police station, she said.
On January 18, 2008, a Fairfax
County cop was placed on leave after being charged with harassment of an
ex-girlfriend.
AND THEY GAVE THIS GUY A GUN…………
On November 29, 1983 a cop
recently released from the force was arrested and sent to a mental asylum after
being labeled "armed and dangerous" after fleeing an incident
involving his wife.
AND THEY GAVE THIS GUY A GUN…………
In 2000 a Fairfax cop
officeraccidentallyshot another cop in the chest during a drug arrest. The Fairfax Coalition of Police and numerous
officers said an oral or written reprimand is typically given when a Fairfax
officer accidentally shoots someone…..you can’t get any tougher than that now
can ya?
AND THEY GAVE THIS GUY A GUN…………
On January 9, 2010, a former
Fairfax County cop, whose wife was slain in 1991, was sentenced to 19 years in
prison for abducting her twice in the months before her death, but he was not
charged with killing her.
In 2007, Nevada authorities found the former
cop living in a one-room apartment in Las Vegas and brought him in for
questioning. During several taped
conversations, Webster denied killing or kidnapping his wife. But he did say, "When I get angry,
people get seriously hurt or they die”.
…AND THE GUN JUST WENT OFF, JUST
LIKE THAT. REALLY. NO REALLY, IT DID.
In August of 1971, an off-duty
Fairfax County cop shot and killed himself at his home in Arlington last
night. Arlington police ruled his death
“accidental”. Life insurance played no
role in the finding. No, really, it
didn’t otherwise it could have been termed a suicide.
…WE HAVE DIFFERENT RULES THAN YOU
Although the cops worked over a
man for drinking in August of 1974, less than two years earlier, in 1972, the
adult son of a friend of the chief of police was released from jail on the
chief’s orders after he was arrested for drunk driving. The Board of supervisors said and did
nothing.
In March of 1967, a Fairfax
County cop’s behavior was so bad that the police took the very highly unusual
step of firing him. The cop had been
sent to a woman’s home to investigate reports of a man exposing himself. Several hours later, the cop returned to the
woman’s home, drunk, with a female companion.
The police refused to comment on what happened next, but the woman was
hospitalized. Needless to say, the fired
cop was not arrested.
THAT’LL TEACH EM
In January of 1993, the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors, conceding that its police promotion procedures
discriminated against women. They Board
of Supervisors then punished the police by agreeing to pay cash settlements to
the bias complaints. No money was taken
from the police budget and cops were fired.
In April of 1976, a Fairfax
County Police detective, a 16-year
veteran was charged with felony
embezzlement. He was convicted of
malfeasance and fined $500.
IT’S CALLED MAIL FRAUD
In September of 1984, Fairfax
County Police Chief Carroll D. Buracker accused Fraternal Order of Police Lodge
of "unconscionable" fund-raising tactics, charging it had sent
numerous bills and past-due notices to businesses in Northern Virginia for
unordered tickets to a variety show.
The cop’s flyers said that
proceeds from the show were going to benefit local community activities,
including neighborhood watch and home security programs. "(The) Lodge did not contribute in any
way to these activities in Fairfax County," he said. The chief of police never reported the crime
to postal authorities or made arrests for fraud. The Board of supervisors….wait
for it…..did nothing.
FOUR DAYS WITHOUT PAY, THE BAD
GUY ESCAPES…THAT’LL TEACH HIM.
On January 18, 2007 the Fairfax
County prosecutor’s office was forced to
dropped an embezzlement case
against a county employee because the cop who was investigating him was also
having an affair with his wife.
A Fairfax judge called the cops conduct
"deplorable and inexcusable, and a discredit to the Fairfax County Police
Department"…which, if you think about, is a very difficult thing to do,
all considered.
To teach the cop a lesson, he was
suspended for four days without pay and transferred though that would have no
impact on his salary. The Board of
supervisors said and did nothing.
IT WOULD MAKE US LOOK BAD IF WE TOLD YOU WHAT
HAPPENED
In June of 1991 the cops decided
not to tell the media of anyone else that British Royal Air Force officer was
kidnapped from a Tysons Corner parking.
The officer was taken in the trunk of a car to Prince George's County,
where he managed to get out using a tire iron.
Several days’ later Fairfax police arrested two suspects.
On July 12, 1991 a fight between
Hispanic and black youths broke out near Jeb Stuart High School at Baileys
Crossroads. One of the youths involved
was charged with attempted malicious wounding and six others were charged with
disorderly conduct.
Those charges showed up on a
police computer in the public information office. For that reason, a local newspaper and called
the police headquarters to get more information. Headquarters didn’t know anything about it. The Mason District station knew about it but
didn’t release any information about it.
In July of 1991, someone burned
the word “Jew” into the front yard of a West Springfield family. The police called it a destruction of
property report and prayed the media wouldn’t pick up on it. But they did and an account of the lawn
burning appeared in a local newspaper when B'nai B'rith officials and the
family reported it to the paper.
WE DON’T EVIDENCE SO WE’LL HAVE
YOU LIE ABOUT IT
In April of 1980 the cops
arrested and jail a man on burglary based on "positive ID’ by the
housemaid. The accused man hired a
private detective who had the housemaid, a non-English speaking Asian, swear
out a statement that she never spoke to police, and certainly didn’t give them
a positive ID of anyone. The arresting
cops were not charged with false arrest nor reprimanded although one was
"counseled" on being argumentative with the falsely accused citizen
on the night of the arrest.
**********
On November 20, 1996, the court
overturned the case of a man accused of murder because his arrest was made by
Fairfax County Police who failed to offer the man his Miranda warnings.
August 28, 1980 A man convicted
of burglary had his conviction reversed because his confession at the hands of
Fairfax County Police was unlawful search and seizure
April 5, 1988 The court reversed
the conviction of a man convicted on three counts of robbery and one count of
use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery because police tainted out-of-court
identifications after the witnesses testified that the single photograph had
aided them in their in-court identification. The cops got away with it. No one
was punished or reprimanded.
April 5, 1988: Conviction for
second-degree murder was reversed and remanded by a higher court after the
court found that a Fairfax County police officer knowingly testified to the
contents of an out-of-court statement made by a witness on the very slick
ground that the witness denied making the statement. The cops got away with it.
No one was punished or reprimanded.
June 19, 1992: A court agreed
with a man accused of distributing narcotics to a minor. The court ruled that
the Fairfax Police tricked him into a confession, failed to present evidence
about defendant's state of mind, whether he was under the influence of any drug
or alcohol. The court questioned whether he had acknowledged understanding his
constitutional rights, or whether he had any prior experience with the criminal
justice system. The cops got away with it. No one was punished or
reprimanded.
June 21, 1993: A conviction for
abduction with intent to defile was overturned because the evidence collected
by police could find intent to molest only by resorting to surmise and
speculation, evidence gathered was inadmissible and statements gathered by the
police were also inadmissible.
1993: Yet another case is tossed
out of court when the court agreed that the Fairfax Police illegally stopped
and searched the defendant’s car.
February 4, 1994: Yet again, a
court ruled with a man who said that the evidence used against him by the
arresting officer's, under the circumstances, was not a particularized and
objective basis for subjecting the driver to a stop of a car. The judge ruled
that the stop was not consistent with Fourth Amendment principles and that the
Defendant's car was not violating the law before it was stopped by the officer
so the constitutionality of the stop was not reasonable.
February 28, 1994: Court over
turned the case of a man arrested after a police officer, conducting records
checks on the vehicles parked outside a dining establishment, entered the wrong
number while checking on defendant's plate.
Believing defendant's vehicle was registered to another car, the officer
stopped defendant's car when he pulled out of the establishment. After running a check of the correct license
number, the officer arrested defendant for driving on a suspended license.
The cop testified that his only
reason for stopping defendant's vehicle was his erroneous conclusion that
defendant was driving a vehicle with an illegal license plate. Defendant argued that the evidence that he
was driving on a suspended license was inadmissible because the investigatory
stop was precipitated by an erroneous records check resulting solely from the
negligence of the officer. The court
agreed
February 9, 2000. The court overturned the case of a drug
dealer because Fairfax County Police Officers did not have reasonable suspicion
that defendant was engaged in drug-related activity, and did not observe
anything on his person that indicated he possessed any type of contraband. His mere presence near the target area and on
a public street did not support finding of reasonable suspicion.
February 7, 2006. The court reversed a conviction for illegal
massage because no evidence given by the police proved beyond a reasonable
doubt that defendant had received, or had an expectation of receiving,
compensation for giving a massage.
On October 2, 2007 A court overturned
the conviction of a drug dealer because the police lacked reasonable suspicion
to stop the vehicle in which drug dealer was riding. The court found the arresting officers
testimony "incredible"
On March 2, 2007 a robbery case
was overturned because Fairfax County Police got a confession without informing
the suspect of his rights.
August 8, 2008 Court found that
the police unlawfully seized evidence and the resulting search of a suspect’s
vehicle was unlawful, requiring suppression of the seized evidence.
THE MORALITY POLICE
“A hypocrite despises those whom
he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself
too, if he could.” William Hazlitt
In 1968 a Fairfax County Police
Captain assigned to the McLean, station was fined $100 for "encouraging
the act of abortion”. The cop sobbed
went the fine was read by the judge. He
and two others were arrested in connection with the abortion-death of a police
department stenographer named Ann Smith.
Smith, who was 30 years old, was four months pregnant when she
died. The cop contacted a businessman
friend of his and asked if he could arrange “To help a girl who is in
trouble”
Again, the young woman died, the
cop, the married father of two, who arranged for the abortion to be conducted
by a hospital orderly, got off with a $100 fine and the son of bitch cried
about it.
“The law, in its majestic
equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg
in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Jacques Anatole François Thibault
On May 8 1985, a stripper named
Linda Barnett, who worked for a company called "Have Fun, Will
Travel" was sent to a Tysons Corner Holiday Inn to entertain a group of
men she believed were giving a bachelor party.
The man who made the appointment said that the bachelor party was for
"kind of a wild bunch”
The eight men she entertained for were Fairfax
County cops with apparently nothing else to do.
The cops rented the room.
Provided themselves with snack and liquor and snacks “to look like a
party” all at taxpayers’ expense.
When Linda Barnett finished her
performance, she said, the men "tried to get me to prostitute
myself.” She said she refused and they
refused to pay her the $150 fee they had agreed too. However, they did arrest Barnett on a
misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.
It took eight cops…with a budget….to arrest the five foot five inch
naked lady. The Fairfax County
prosecutor dropped the charges. The
Board of supervisors said and did nothing.
SO WE ROB BANKS ONCE IN A WHILE,
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
“It's a lot of crooked cops out
there. They manipulate the system.” Ludacris
On May 22 1987, 23-year veteran
of the Fairfax County Police put a mask over his face and robbed the Central
Fidelity Bank in Burke, Virginia. He was
also a suspect in at least three other area bank robberies, according to court
documents, including one that FBI officials have described as
"particularly violent”.
SO WE STEAL FROM THE PROPERTY ROOM EVERY NOW
AND THEN, SO WHAT?
“Cops and robbers resemble each
other, so there's not a lot to learn in terms of learning the logistics of
committing the crime or investigating the crime.” Andre Braugher
In April of 1987, a veteran detective on the
Fairfax County Police force was convicted of malfeasance after investigators
found property in home that was recovered in commercial robbery investigations
and placed in a police evidence room.
The items included computer games, a radio, a tool kit, six pairs of
expensive sunglasses, a 21-piece Precision tool kit, three sets of
nickel-plated steel handcuffs, knickknacks from the Franklin Mint and assorted
computer equipment.
EXTREME FORCE
Q: How many cops does it take to
throw a man down the stairs?
A:None. He fell.
On February 23, 1980, two cops
were accused of using "extreme force" on a citizen who fled the scene
of a minor car accident. The case was
settled in federal court….in other words the taxpayers picked up the tab for
the beating and the cops got off free of charge. In 1980 there were 140 formal complaints
against Fairfax County police, more than all of the jurisdictions in the
greater DC area. "Over the
years" writers the ACLU "there seems to be a more pronounced pattern
of complaints in the Fairfax County Police"
In 1997, the Fairfax County
Police posted that fewer than 25 percent of murders, rapes, robberies,
aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor-vehicle thefts in Fairfax
County were solved. In other words, 75
percent of these crimes remain unsolved.
In 1979, there two complaints a
week against the Fairfax County Police.
The police investigated the police and found that only 27 complaints
deserved action….if it can be called action.
Twenty of the cops received oral reprimands and nine were given letters
of reprimand. One was sent home for one day….one day…without pay.
WE’LL ARREST YOU NOW AND FIGURE
OUT A CHARGE LATER
“The purpose of a jury is to
guard against the exercise of arbitrary power--to make available the common
sense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken
prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over conditioned or
biased response of a judge.” Byron White
On June 13, 1986, of a
photographer named William J. Kelly Jr., was wrongly arrested him for a
sexually abusing and illicitly photographing his own two children. Kelly was initially held without bond and
jailed for seven days before he was released on bail.
Kelly said the police coerced his
children into making statements that he sexually abused them and asked if the
children if they ever "fooled around" with their father. When they said "no", cops warned
the children that they might be sent to a juvenile detention home if they
didn't change their story.
Kelly's 10-year-old daughter said
that when she told the cops that her father had not indecently touched her or
photographed her, that the cops said if you don't tell the truth, you'll go to
juvenile jail . . . so I told him yes . . . .
I thought if he heard what he wanted to hear everything would be all
right." In August of 1987, a
federal jury found that the cops violated the civil rights and granted him a
paltry $55,000.00
On October 14, 1979, a judge
dismissed all charges against members of the Rickman family who were involved
in a scuffle with the cops. The judge
also criticized two cops and in throwing out the case said d he could not find
"one scintilla of evidence" to support the initial drunk driving
charge that prompted the incident. The
family said that the two cops who arrested Rickman attacked them without
provocation in their own front yard.
According to witnesses, on August
10 year-old Timothy Rickman allegedly flashed his lights and honked his horn at
a patrol car. The cop followed Rickman
into the family's driveway and started a fight with him when Rickman allegedly
refused to be questioned and called for help.
The cop called for reinforcements.
Rickman was charged with drunk
driving and assault and obstruction of justice and assault charges were brought
against his father, his mother Arlene, and his stepbrother. "They ought to put both (officers)
behind the desk. Neither one of them are
ready to work in the street," Arlene Rickman said “I couldn't expect much
punishment even if they found them guilty.
I'm surprised they're doing this much.
This is like a police state . . . and they really protect their
own," she said.
On the lighter side, the police
said its internal affairs section, the department charged with protecting the
image of the police, was going to investigate the case. Remarkably, and I know this is hard to
believe but the department cleared one of the cops involved and transferred
another.
Even the chief of police noted
that the cop "not really being punished, just reassigned"
Unfortunately for the cops the FBI opened an investigation into the case
looking into possible use of excessive force.
“It is not a Justice System. It is just a system.” Bob Enyart
In July of 1999, a man named
showed a lifeguard at a Reston Virginia Health Spa, a member of the spa, naked
photos of himself. A few hours later a
Fairfax County Police detective wrongly arrested a man named James M. Brocco
for the crime.
The cop searched Brocco’s home
and took him to jail. The police, who
run their own publicity department, immediately sent a new release stating that
James M. Brocco had been arrested for indecent exposure and included a photo of
Brocco with the story. Several
newspapers printed the stories.
The actual perpetrator was later arrested. The case cost Brocco $3,500 in legal
fees. The cop who arrested was protected
from a wrongful arrest law since county government officials are protected from
liability with a few exceptions.
DEAF AND DUMB
On October 16 1993 a South
African diplomatic couple were having a garden party at their home in Oakton
when the cops arrested them for public drunkenness. The cops came to the home after neighbors
complained about noise at the outdoor party.
The diplomat and his wife were
walking two guests to their car when the cops arrested them. The couple told Fairfax County cops that they
were diplomats, that they had immunity from arrest and showed the cops State
Department issued identification to prove they were diplomats. It was ignored.
The cops arrested them anyway and kept them in
jail for almost four hours. On the
lighter end of things, the Fairfax police said they would conduct an internal
investigation of the two arresting officers' actions. “They will likely be disciplined if the
department finds they acted improperly”
THE SHORT LIVED BUT WELL INTENDED
CITIZENS FOR IMPROVED LAW ENFORCEMENT
In 1979, there was a 27% increase
in complaints from citizens against the Fairfax County Police. Also in In 1979, a group called Fairfax
County Citizens for Improved Law Enforcement and Community Relations called for
citizen councils that could review complaint cases against the police, but,
amazingly enough the Police rejected the proposal. The Citizens for Improved Law Enforcement was
formed early after the widely reported Donald Ferguson case in which a young
black man died at Western State Hospital after his arrest in Fairfax and
jailing there
PAPER WORK CHALLENGED
In 2010 the Fairfax County police
launched a computer system was supposed to do away with a lot of paperwork and
allow paper work challenged cops to
enter traffic tickets, arrest data and vital intelligence into an online system
that would be instantly available to anyone who needed it.
But the cops couldn’t figure out
how to work the system or found it to troublesome and as a result wrote 17,600
fewer traffic tickets in a one period a 28 percent drop compared with the same
period the year before and costing the county more than $1 million in lost
revenue.
In 2004, the county police bought
a computer-aided dispatch system. It
didn’t work. The cops operating the
system blamed….wait for it…..the system and said that it failed so often and functioned so poorly that
they had to trash it before its minimum 10-year lifespan was up. The cops didn’t say if they shot the system
to death but the internal affairs office was expected to issue a preemptive
case investigation proving everything was the system fault.
THE SYSTEM IS WORKING JUST FINE.
In April of 1984, Mary Ryder and
Claude Lineberry were arrested on bench warrants and jailed after they failed
to appear in court on an assigned date.
The cops said they didn’t appear in court on hearing divorce/child
support proceedings. The court records
said otherwise. The judge in the case
apologized but the Fairfax County police said they had looked into the
incidents "and we're satisfied that the system . . . is fine"
REPORT TAKERS
Starting in 1971, for the next
four decades, the Fairfax County States Attorney will not charge a Fairfax
County police officer with a crime. That
same year, a management consulting study stated that the Fairfax County Police
"are essentially neighborhood guards and report takers rather than police
officers" and have a dismal record for solving crime with just 2.7% of all
felonies solved versus a 21% national solved rate.
SOMETIMES OUR RECORD KEEPING BRINGS
US OUT AHEAD
In 1977, there were 117 valid
complaints against the cops and 27 other complaints that could not be proved or
disproved. Complaints were filed against
283 cops of whom 44 had received prior complaints in just the year before.
In 1978, there were 648 cops on
the force. About 400 were in the
field. There were 253 complaints filed
against them in ten months of that year.
About one complaint per day, per cop.
Of that number, 36 were for excessive use of force. One cop was fired for stealing funds from a
police station fund. Two cops were
disciplined for “unwarranted use of their pistols”. Three cops, under investigation resigned from
the force rather than face termination.
SPEAKING OF REPORT TAKERS, DON’T
BOTHER US WITH YOUR SHOOTING, WE’RE BUSY FILING PAPERS
On Feburary 2, 2008, a bipolar
man named Jeffrey S. Koger was on the run.
He had stolen more than $3 million from homeowners associations that
were managed by his property management company. He bought a gun a few weeks before and had
been practice shooting with it onside of his house, randomly shooting up the
walls.
That night Kroger followed a cab
driven by a man named Ayman Sirelkatim.
A short time before, Kroger had driven to Alexandria and, for no
apparent reason, walked up to a taxicab stopped at a light and fired several
shots into the face, shoulder, and chest of the driver.
Kroger then got back into his car
and drove away and a short time later started to follow Ayman Sirelkatim
cab. Kroger rammed Sirelkatim’s cab and
Sirelkatim pulled his cab into the parking lot of the Franconia station of the
Fairfax County Police.
Seeing Kroger follow him,
Sirelkatim pulled out of the station lot.
However two another cab driver, Najib Gerdak and his friend Scott Duke,
were in the lot talking. Koger drove in,
climbed out of his car and shot Duke and Gerdak several times, and then drove
off.
Before the shooting started, Gerdak said he
went into the station to let police know that Kroger was chasing the cab driver
Ayman Sirelkatim across the parking lot.
Gerdak said that there was a woman at the front desk, not in a police
uniform, had her feet up and was asleep.
"She fell asleep watching
TV," Gerdak said. He said that he
tapped on the window until she woke up
and told her, "There are two crazy people chasing each other out
front, a cab and an SUV”.
"She tells me," Gerdak
said”, 'You need to go back outside and tell the cabdriver to call his own
dispatcher. "
Gerdak then walked back to the
parking lot when Kroger shot him four times.
A sixth shot struck the cross around Gerdak's neck, in front of his
heart, and ricocheted. Somehow Gerdak
managed to 911 and then waited 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
In June of 2010, Gerdak sued the
police for $10 million. The case was
dismissed by a reluctant U.S. District Judge because it was filed too
late. Judge James C. Cacheris said he
was "deeply unsatisfied" by his own ruling earlier, "as the
conduct alleged here is shocking to say the least.” The Fairfax County Police refused to release
the name of the civilian employee who refused to help him and referred to as
“Jane Doe”.
In 1968, in an attempt (That
failed, thank God) to intimidate merchants from opening on Sunday, the cops
arrested a part time assistant manager
of a Tysons Corner drug store and charged him with violating Virginia's blue
laws. A few days later, a 35-year-old
County cop was charged with shoplifting while moonlighting as a supermarket
security guard….so it all kind of evens out.
Stealing from a store doesn’t come to close to stealing from the Boy
Scout but that’s what a Fairfax County cop did.
He was indicted for embezzling
$280.00 from the Boy Scout of America on November 21, 1981.
2006: The sergeant's test was
being investigated for possible cheating.
The outcome of the investigation is secret and will not be released to
the public.
Three years later, on February
12, 2009, three Fairfax County police officials were temporarily removed from
their duties after a cop for a promotional exam said he was leaked questions to
the test.
Among those suspended was a
lieutenant who was an assistant commander in the organized crime and narcotics unit
and former assistant commander of the McLean district station.
A month later, on March 18, 2009,
two Fairfax County cops accused in a cheating scandal involving promotional
exams left the department, and two others were placed on administrative duties
with pay. In March of 2009, two cops accused of cheating on a promotional exams left the police force. They were not arrested, jailed or fined.
Pretty good that the cops gave the cops.
In 1993, 10 female cops
complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about a "locker
room attitude" in the police department and said they had been denied
promotions and key assignments because of their sex.
On February 23, 1995, a jury
found that a Fairfax County police lieutenant named retaliated against a female
civilian employee who had complained about sexual harassment at work. A communication aide assigned to the
department's Franconia station, said that the cop had harassed her because she
would not strike up a personal relationship with him.
She said that after she filed the
charges, the cop made up a fake
disciplinary charges against her. The
lawsuit initially sought $ 1 million in damages on behalf of the woman and three female cops who also
alleged that Jackson harassed them. The
charges made by the other women, who alleged abuses dating to 1982, were
dropped from the case after the judge ruled that their complaints were not
filed on time.
MY FRIEND THE TERRORIST
January 2008: A ranking police
officer pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally using police computers in
2005 to check license plate numbers for a friend, though he said he did not
know the friend was under federal surveillance and the vehicles checked were
being used by federal agents in a terrorism case.
