Fairfax County Police Watch: 04/08/23

'We're hemorrhaging' Fairfax County police decry budget proposal as police shortage spikes

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The police staffing crisis continues in Fairfax County where the police department is still short nearly 200 police officers. As other nearby counties and cities increase police officer pay to keep officers and attract new ones, Fairfax County is lagging. Last week, Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill proposed a new county budget that includes 2% pay raises for every county employee, including police officers.

Hill also proposed funding performance, merit and longevity increases.

“The executive’s budget that was proposed is extremely disappointing,” said Steve Monahan, the President of the Fairfax Chapter of the Southern States Police Benevolent Association. “The budget just itself undervalues us entirely. Our officers are out here overworked, underpaid and now it’s very clear the County Executive undervalues to the work that they do.”

The Fairfax County police union is warning residents what could happen if the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors moves forward with the County Executive’s budget.

“This is going to impact Fairfax County citizens and community members in a negative way,” Monahan said. “I don’t know if the County Executive realizes that. And the impact that that’s going to do to this prestigious title that this county has which is the safest jurisdiction of its size.”

“I think this department [FCPD] is getting to the point of beyond return it’s going to force the department to cut services,” Monahan added. “The community members are not going to receive the services they expect.”

The 200-officer shortage comes at a time when several major crimes against people and property are rising in Fairfax County.

7News was the first report last summer that the staffing crisis at FCPD got so bad that the department declared a personnel emergency – forcing officers to work longer shifts.

“We are still hemorrhaging and what the county is doing instead of fixing it and giving us a tourniquet to fix this hemorrhaging they’ve given us a band-aid and said suck it up," Monahan said. "What we want to see and what we hope to see is the Board of Supervisors is going to change some things. We know they have the ability to do that.”

Nearby cities and counties have increased starting police officer pay while Fairfax County approved signing bonuses for new officers.

“Thankfully, Fairfax County has begun signing bonuses,” Monahan said. “But at the end of the day, what applicant is going to want to come here when the starting pay is at the bottom in the region? It’s sad to say that Fairfax County used to be the number one place for applicants to apply to. Now Fairfax County's starting pay is the lowest in the region. And that’s 18 different agencies. We are at the bottom for starting pay.”

7News asked supervisors if they think the proposed budget addresses the police staffing crisis in Fairfax County.

“It doesn’t really even start to address it,” Supervisor Pat Herrity told 7News. ard of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said he wants to find a balance between providing tax relief to homeowners and pay increases to county employees.

“I will be meeting with a number of community organizations as well as multiple Fairfax County employee groups during this year’s budget process as I do every year,” McKay told 7News in a statement. “I will work with my colleagues to strike the best balance possible between providing tax relief to County homeowners and providing well-earned pay increases for our County employees who provided critical services to our residents. This includes looking at options above what the County Executive has proposed.”

"This is a false narrative, it is not a question of pay increases or tax increases, it is a question of priorities and what is important to our residents,” said Herrity. “Public safety is clearly a priority of our residents. The Board needs to be doing the same thing our residents are doing and make the hard choices of what should be funded and what shouldn't. To date, they could not even second my motion to begin looking spending for efficiencies or spending reductions as prior Boards have done in challenging times (under both Democrat and Republican boards)."

But with crime on the rise, and officers continuing to leave, Monahan wants all county leaders to acknowledge there is a problem and to fix it.

“In the long run, I think the county needs to step up. The county needs to look at how other entities are prioritizing public safety compensation and do the same for us,” Monahan said. “Fairfax County has a special police department. Fairfax County offers services that no other jurisdictions offer. As more and more officers leave, those specialties that we are able to provide to the community – the ESRO detective, the crisis intervention team, the helicopter, search and rescue – entities like that, we are going to have to start having to pull bodies from.”

“You’ve seen other jurisdictions reduce calls for service say hey we can’t come to these calls anymore because we don’t have bodies,” Monahan added. “We’ve seen other jurisdictions prioritize mental health for officers by cutting back on the number of hours worked. Instead, we are still in a position where we are requiring mandatory overtime, we are having officers stay past the end of their shifts, we are seeing specialties not be fully staffed.”

Budget public hearings are scheduled for April 11 and April 13.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is expected to make changes to the County Executive’s budget on May 2 and is set to finalize the budget on May 9.

“Our officers can’t take it anymore because at the end of the day, they have to go home and put food on the table for themselves and their family,” Monahan added. “And when you see a jurisdiction next door paying more than $10,000 starting pay why would an applicant apply for Fairfax? He [Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill] chose to give us 2 [percent raises]. That’s not even keeping in mind what the national inflation numbers are at. That doesn’t take into account the health care premiums that could go up. There’s going to be less money going into our officers' pockets.”

“Based on the pay plan, general county employees will receive an average 4.06% increase and public safety employees will receive an average 4.39% increase,” a Fairfax County news release said.

Hill included $90 million to be allocated at the Board of Supervisors discretion.

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.