Fairfax County Police Watch: 'Let me see in their position': Faith leaders attend Fairfax Police use-of-force workshop

by Justin Hinton

WASHINGTON (ABC7) — “The climate is constantly changing so we always have to have this conversation. We always have to be doing this so that we can stay ahead of things,” said Pastor Jeremiah Marshall of Gospel Outreach Community Center.

He said he was inspired to attend and learn from a police use of force training workshop held at Christ Church in Fairfax Station Friday after seeing the body cam footage of an officer using his stun gun on a resident and what ensued.

On Saturday, June 6, after a day of racial justice protests in D.C. following the death of George Floyd, the Fairfax County Police Department called a late press conference to release details surrounding the arrest of one of the department's own officers.

Body camera video showed the white officer, Tyler Timberlake, deploying his stun gun on a Black man, who was walking away from him at the time.

“Compiled with everything else, it was a heavy weight," Marshall said. "It was heavy weight, hence driving me to be here today to try and understand where they’re at and how I can be a part of the change that can happen within Fairfax County Police Department."

But he and other faith leaders didn’t come to just sit down and learn about the six-month academy, the 250 hours devoted to use of force training or the internal checks to make sure officers aren’t applying force too many times.

They also came for a simulation to see if they would use force on a given scenario.

“It kind of let me see in their position what they have to do and how they have to do it and how much time they have to do it in,” said Marshall.

These types of forums have been taking place in Fairfax County for quite some time.

The police chief says it’s how policies are developed.

“The policies we are explaining today with our community advocates was and is and will continue to be co-produced with our community,” Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said. “Maybe there’s a gap in our policy that community members can identify so we can take that constructive criticism back and work with our community advocates to enhance what we do in Fairfax County.”

He says Fairfax County was ahead of the curve when it came to reviewing policy within the policy department.

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.