Fairfax County Police Watch: Big deal. I've been calling for his resignation for years. THE FCPD NEEDS OUTSIDE BLOOD.

Fraternal Order of Police calls for Fairfax County police chief’s resignation

Dick Uliano

The Fairfax County, Virginia, Fraternal Order of Police is calling for the resignation of police Chief Ed Roessler over his handling of an incident involving a white police officer who is accused of using a stun gun last month on a Black man who appeared disoriented and noncombative.

“As the President of the Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 77 myself, my membership and officers of your department no longer have confidence in your ability to be the Chief of the Fairfax County Police Department and ask you respectively to resign your position immediately,” Brad Carruthers, president of the Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 77, writes in a letter to the Roessler.

Officer Tyler Timberlake is facing three counts of assault and battery for stunning the man, who was rambling and pacing in the street on June 5. Timberlake and other officers on the scene were relieved of duty pending the investigation.

Prosecutors were granted permission Monday to drop misdemeanor charges and instead seek to secure an indictment against Timberlake, who used a stun gun on the man he mistakenly thought he recognized.

Immediately after using his stun gun, Timberlake is heard repeatedly addressing the man as “Anthony.” But the person Timberlake was on top of was not named Anthony.

The man was treated at a hospital and released.

In a statement to the community a few days after the incident, Roessler accused Timberlake of violating the department’s use-of-force policies.

The FOP, in its letter to Roessler, the board of supervisors, the county executive and deputy county executive of public safety, accused Roessler of failing to be “a fair and impartial leader.”

The group’s letter said Roessler “crossed the line from Chief of Police to that of a politician playing dress up.”

The letter charges that Roessler’s public statements “effectively ended the career and impugned the reputation of a Fairfax County Police Officer.”

The group said a survey of its members found that 99% said Roessler’s actions have worsened morale, and 98% support a formal request for Roessler to resign immediately.

In a statement issued by the Fairfax County Police Department Public Affairs Bureau, chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, “Chief Roessler is focused and committed to leading the department.”

Guglielmi also said that “public integrity, transparency and ethical leadership will always be at the core of everything we do here.”

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.