Fairfax County Police Watch: October 2021

Fairfax County police union worried about staffing shortage

....then your game. Stop hiring goons and John Wayne wanna-be's.

Ha!

Ill say it again, they're nothing but a bunch of fucking punks and they're out of control

Fired D.C. firefighter to get $390K from Fairfax County over wrongful arrest

Elon Wilson spent 21 months in prison after his arrest by former Fairfax County Officer Jonathan A. Freitag

Oct 11, 2021

By Janelle Foskett

WASHINGTON — A former D.C. Fire and EMS firefighter will receive nearly $390,000 from Fairfax County, Virginia, to settle a lawsuit alleging a wrongful arrest that resulted in his 21-month imprisonment.

Elon Wilson filed a federal lawsuit in July, three months after a judge vacated his convictions and ordered him freed. The judgment followed an internal investigation into Jonathan A. Freitag, the Fairfax County officer who arrested Wilson

The lawsuit stemmed from an April 2018 incident in which Freitag pulled over Wilson, ostensibly for crossing a yellow line on the road, failing to pull over when signaled and having illegally tinted windows, according to court records. Freitag arrested Wilson after finding oxycodone and handguns in the car. Wilson said they were not his.

Wilson was subsequently fired from D.C. Fire and EMS.

In July 2019, Wilson was sentenced to a little over three years in prison.

Around the same time, Fairfax internal affairs investigators began reviewing Freitag’s traffic stops. Freitag ultimately admitted that he had made “pretextual” traffic stops, using a false reason to pull over a vehicle. In February 2020, Wilson’s lawyer, Marvin D. Miller, filed a motion seeking information about the internal affairs investigation.

The Washington Post reported that, in April 2021, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Daniel E. Ortiz vacated Wilson’s convictions and ordered him freed, saying “Freitag’s fabricated grounds for the stop, police report, and warrant made under oath fundamentally tampered with the judicial machinery and subverted the integrity of the court itself.”

Following Wilson’s release, Miller and civil rights lawyer Victor M. Glasberg filed a federal suit against Fairfax on Wilson’s behalf. Fairfax began settlement negotiations and, on Oct. 7, agreed to pay Wilson $390,000.

Freitag had defended his actions in multiple interviews.

How very PC of you….once again, the Fairfax County Police play politics instead of working at policing

Fairfax County Police Remove Arrest Blotter Over ICE Data Sharing Concerns

Colleen Grablick

Community advocates said the list violated a new law that limits local law enforcement’s interactions with immigration enforcement agencies.

Michael Pope / WAMU

Fairfax County’s police department will no longer publish the names and personal information of people arrested for crimes, heeding concerns from advocates that the list endangered immigrant residents.

Earlier this year, the county’s Board of Supervisors passed a Public Trust and Confidentiality Policy, cutting off all voluntary cooperation and information sharing between local agencies and federal immigration authorities. But advocates said the arrest blotter, which lived on the police department’s website and included information like names and last known addresses, continued to violate the law, commonly known as the Trust Policy, by allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to target immigrant residents.

“We believe that [the arrest blotter] violated the Trust Policy, because it’s not necessary to release that personal information,” says Diane Alejandro, a lead advocate with ACLU People Power Fairfax. “It just is, more than anything, a shaming list.”

According to Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for Fairfax County police, the county originally began publishing that type of information online in 2016 in order to limit the amount of calls the department received from residents seeking information about arrests in their neighborhood.

The arrest blotter came down last Friday, after a review of the practice by ACLU People Power Fairfax found the blotter to be non-compliant with the Trust Policy, Guglielmi said. The Washington Post first reported the decision.

The county will still be running a weekly crime roundup on the department’s website, but will withhold names and any other information regarding the individuals arrested.

“Important information will continue to be shared with the community, and arrest data remains easily accessible via FOIA to residents and reporters,” County Supervisor Dalia Palchik, one of the nine supervisors that voted in favor of the Trust Policy policy, wrote in a statement to DCist/WAMU.

Alejandro, who advocated for the passage of the Trust Policy, say ACLU People Power Fairfax supports the continuation of a crime roundup, without the names and personal information of individuals arrested. If someone is truly interested in gathering that information, she says, there are plenty of ways to dig for it on the internet — instead of the police proactively offering it.

“It’s not like folks are being left in the dark,” Alejandro says, adding that arrest information will still be available to members of the public upon a FOIA request. “I think that honestly smacks of racism to suggest that the interests of people who just want to know the name of every person arrested to satisfy their curiosity should take precedence over the lives of immigrants.”

Unlike in D.C. or Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, where the police force is overseen by the top elected official, the Fairfax County Police Department is under the purview of the Board of Supervisors. The Trust Policy, which passed the Board of Supervisors by a 9-1 vote in January, applies to all agencies across Fairfax County’s government. While the provisions of the new law allow cooperation with ICE officials if it is required or requested, the policy bars willful or voluntary local information sharing that would help immigration enforcement track down individuals.

Alejandro says she does not know of any residents that were targeted directly as a result of the arrest blotter, but that she and other advocates “know it happens.”

“We don’t need to hand [the information] to them on a silver platter,” Alejandro says. “We’re not going to volunteer information to ICE, and this is what the police were doing.”

A spokesperson for ICE denied that the agency used the Fairfax County’s arrest information to locate or apprehend any residents.

“ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations does not use police blotter data to identify immigration enforcement targets in Fairfax County, Virginia,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to DCist/WAMU. “ICE ERO officers use intelligence-driven leads to identify specific individuals for arrest.”

The removal of the arrest list marks the latest step in Fairfax County’s efforts to limit the county’s interactions with federal immigration agencies. In 2020, the county codified a policy that prevents police officers from asking or disclosing a person’s immigration status, or using immigration status as a determining factor when considering to take a person into custody on a misdemeanor charge.

Regionally, Arlington County officials are also considering ways to decrease local law enforcement’s engagement with ICE — last week, the Arlington County Board released the draft of a framework to increase protection of immigrant residents, including proposals to decrease the local police’s contact with immigration agencies.

Fairfax County should get off its ass and do the same as Newsom.

California Gov. Newsom signs sweeping police reform bills

More than three dozen groups representing police officers opposed the legislation, according to a report

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of police reform bills Thursday to address law enforcement misconduct that would strip officers of their badges for a range of incidents, among other measures.

Surrounded by lawmakers and the family members of victims killed by police officers, Newsom signed four bills he touted would increase transparency. During his remarks, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said there is a "crisis of trust" when it comes to law enforcement.

"We're delivering concrete solutions from banning dangerous holds that lead to asphyxia to multiple other mechanisms that improve accountability and oversight and transparency," he said.

But more than three dozen groups representing police officers opposed the legislation, claiming it subjects law enforcement officers to double jeopardy with vague definitions of wrongdoing and calls for the use of an oversight panel that would potentially be biased and lacking in expertise about law enforcement, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Senate Bill 2 "merely requires that the individual officer ‘engaged’ in serious misconduct – not that they were found guilty, terminated, or even disciplined," the California Police Chiefs Association wrote in a letter to state lawmakers, according to the Times.

Another bill, Assembly Bill 26, was opposed by the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, which said it participated two years ago in an effort to change the state's use-of-force policies, the Times reported.

The Assembly bill calls for officers to intervene if they suspect a fellow officer is using too much force against a suspect, but the police group argued that in fast-moving incidents, an officer arriving at the scene of an incident might not have enough information to determine if the force is excessive, according to the newspaper.

With Newsom's signings, California joins 46 other states that have laws on the books allowing officers to be fired for acting criminally and for incidents involving racial bias and excessive force. The reforms also raise the minimum age for police officers from 18 to 21, ban some restraining techniques and limit the use of rubber bullets during protests.

"I'm here as governor of California mindful that we're in a juxtaposition of being a leader on police reform and a lagger on police reform," Newsom said from a park gymnasium in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena. "We have a lot to be proud of but there's areas where we have nothing to brag about."

While signing the legislation, supporters chanted "Say his name," in reference to Kenneth Ross Jr., a 25-year-old Black man who was killed in 2018 when an officer shot him at the same Gardena park where the Thursday event occurred. An investigation determined the officer, Michael Robbins, acted lawfully when he shot Ross.

Ross' mother, Fouzia Almarou, said she hopes the bill prevents the loss of life, particularly for people of color.

"This bill means a lot because it's going to stop police from attacking and targeting and being racist towards Black and brown people," she said.

Sandra Quinto Collins, the mother of Angelo Quinto, brushed back tears as she thanked lawmakers for passing the reforms. Quinto died when a San Francisco police officer pressed his knee against his neck during a mental health response call last year.

"To lose a son, to lose a brother, sister, dad — that pain, that intensity, that expression is reflected not just in the words of these two remarkable women and their families, but we hope reflected in this legislation," Newsom said.

The bill's signing came after failed negotiations in Congress halted a bipartisan police reform plan.

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.