Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax County Police reviews use of force, body-worn camera policies

'Sanctity of human life' | Fairfax County Police reviews use of force, body-worn camera policies

After an officer tasered an unarmed man with no apparent warning, and calls for police reform, the FCPD updated the public on what changes they are making.

Author: Laura Wainman

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors held a virtual public safety committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, to examine police policies regarding use of force and body-worn cameras.

The governing body called for the meeting following an incident June 5 where a Fairfax County Police officer used his taser without apparent warning on an unarmed man, La Monta Gladney, who appeared to be in crisis.

Officer Tyler Timberlake was ultimately charged with three counts of assault and battery, and the charges against Gladney were dropped. The Fairfax County Police Department also immediately released the body-camera footage of the incident.

The incident came on the heels of nationwide protests calling for police reform after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis while in police custody.

"In my view, this is the most critical long-term public safety issue facing our community and demands our immediate attention," Supervisor Rodney Lusk said, acknowledging that the Board of Supervisors needed to develop a path forward for ongoing dialogue with the community.

On Tuesday, Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Rossler testified that his department has already implemented many of the reforms being asked for, beginning in 2013, including the prohibition of chokeholds like the one that killed Floyd. He also reiterated that the "sanctity of human life" should be the main guiding principle behind all police behavior.

"Reform and reconciliation, together they are the driving forces for fair and impartial policing," Rossler said.

Under General Order 540, enacted in March 2017, "force is to be used only to the extent it is objectively reasonable to defend oneself or another, to control an individual during an investigative or mental detention, or to lawfully effect an arrest... and "the application of deadly force should only be used in the most extreme circumstances where all lesser means of force have failed or could not reasonably be utilized."

Policies already adopted:

• Carotid artery restraints and chokeholds are not sanctioned force options

• Requiring de-escalation, when possible

• Use of force continuum/training

• Requiring verbal warning before using deadly force, when possible

• Prohibiting shooting at moving vehicles, unless threat of death or serious injury to officer or other person and no other option exists

• Requiring officers to exhaust other reasonable alternatives, when possible

• Requiring comprehensive reporting

• Diversion first/crisis intervention training

The department also emphasized that use of force and de-escalation training is mandated twice a year for all officers.

Pillars of de-escalation:

• Be balanced

• Be real

• Be smooth

• Be empathetic

• Self-control

• Create lasting positive effects

• Never humiliate

Major Chantel Cochrane gave an update on the department's body-worn camera program, which is distributing more than 1,200 cameras over three phases.

The department's current policy requires "all BWC equipped officers shall activate their BWC during their response to a scene or as soon as it is practical and safe to do so and leave it on for the duration of the incident."

Cameras should only be deactivated under certain circumstances:

• Medical/Mental Facilities

• Courthouses

• School grounds

• Reasonable expectation of privacy – service call at a home

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.