Fairfax County Police Watch: They murdered somebody else...how in the hell does the Fairfax County Police get away with this?t

A Fairfax County officer who police say fatally shot a suspected shoplifter near Tysons Corner Center has been fired from the police department, and newly released body camera video shows he did not identify a threat or weapon on the suspect before firing his weapon.

Sgt. Wesley Shifflett's actions did not “meet the expectations” of the police department and Shifflett did not follow use-of-force protocols, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said in a news conference Thursday.

The department released surveillance and body camera footage of the incident, 29 days after Timothy Johnson was shot and killed.

Johnson, 37, was suspected of shoplifting a pair of sunglasses when police chased him to a wooded area by the Northern Virginia mall on Feb. 22. He died a short time later at a hospital.

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Surveillance video shows Johnson going into the Nordstrom store at the mall that evening and looking at designer sunglasses.

An employee with Nordstrom Asset Protection saw Johnson act suspiciously and believed he was about to steal some sunglasses when they called the Tysons Urban Team, who responded to the store, police said.

An officer in plain clothes saw Johnson near the anti-theft alarm at one of the store's exits when the alarm went off, police said. Johnson then turned and walked toward the parking garage exit, according to police.

A few moments later, police say an officer in plain clothes saw Johnson set off a second alarm as he went through it and left the store near the parking garage, which can be seen on surveillance video.

Officers then followed Johnson into the parking garage and saw him go down a stairwell. Video from the parking garage shows an officer running to the stairwell to try to catch up to Johnson.

One uniformed and one officer in plain clothes chased Johnson as he exited the parking garage stairwell, ran through the parking garage and toward Route 7.

Body camera video from the uniformed officer, Sgt. Shifflett, shows the officer running through the parking lot At one point, the Shifflett can be heard saying "He's crossing over! He's crossing over, guys."

Officers continued to pursue Johnson as he changed direction and ran across Fashion Boulevard toward a wooded area.

"Going into the woods, through the woods," Shifflett says. He then shouts to Johnson, "Get on the ground! Get on the ground!"

While following Johnson into the wood line, both officers fired their guns. Johnson was hit in the chest one time.

Three pops can be heard in the video, and the third apparent gunshot is heard as one of the officers yells, "Stop reaching! Stop reaching!"

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.