I don't like how the game is turning out so I want to change the rules midstream

 ANYONE DOUBT SHE'LL GET WHAT SHE WANTS? WELCOME TO FAIRFAX COUNTY. 

Fairfax wants attorney documents in John Geer case kept under seal

By Tom Jackman August 6 

A top Fairfax County government attorney, who faced termination for her handling of a case involving the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man,wants to pursue a grievance against the county, which is seeking to keep key documents in the case hidden from public view.

Deputy County Attorney Cynthia L. Tianti was nearly fired in March after Sharon Bulova (D), the chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said Tianti had not informed the board that the county prosecutor wanted to meet to discuss the case of John B. Geer, who was killed by a county police officer. Tianti headed the legal team that advised Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. to withhold documents from the prosecutor in his investigation of Geer’s 2013 killing, previously released e-mails show.

County Attorney David Bobzien said in March that he was eliminating Tianti’s position as deputy in charge of operations and reorganizing the office while Tianti was placed on leave as the first step in a termination process. But in June, the county restored Tianti to her job as deputy county attorney, although she was assigned to work only on matters involving the Community Services Board, which provides help for people with mental illness and substance abuse problems.

Tianti sought to file a grievance over how she was treated, court records show. Fairfax has well-defined rules on what may be heard by the county’s Civil Service Commission, and the county executive decides whether a grievance can proceed to the commission, an impartial hearing body for county employee grievances and appeals. Court filings show that after a series of e-mails and meetings, Fairfax Deputy County Executive David Rohrer, the former Fairfax police chief, denied Tianti the opportunity to take her case to the commission.

Tianti is appealing Rohrer’s decision to Fairfax County Circuit Court. In that case are documents that apparently involve Tianti’s communications with the Board of Supervisors, according to the county’s filing. The county wants to keep those documents sealed, saying they fall under attorney-client privilege or attorney work product, according to a letter by attorney Sharon Pandak, who is representing Rohrer.

Two people familiar with the case said the communications could support a claim by Tianti that she did nothing improper and possibly contradict the board’s claims that Tianti did not keep them informed about the case. Tianti declined to comment on the case or the content of the communications. She has worked for the county for 25 years and received a top employee award for her work on another case.

Circuit Court Judge Daniel Ortiz will hear arguments Friday on whether to keep the communications between Tianti and the board sealed. The judge has 30 days to rule on whether Tianti should be allowed to proceed with her grievance.

Bulova said of Tianti in an e-mail, “It is interesting that the county attorney who advised the police and Board of Supervisors to not share or release any information is now prepared to release privileged attorney-client information that she believes might be to her advantage. This is a personnel matter regarding an employee who is not happy about being transferred (which was an alternative to being terminated). The Board of Supervisors does not participate in the grievance process and I don’t know what material or documents she wants to have released.”

Asked whether the supervisors would waive their attorney-client privilege to withhold the underlying documents in the case, Bulova said the board is not scheduled to meet again until Sept. 22 and could discuss a waiver then.

After Geer, 46, was shot and killed by Officer Adam D. Torres on Aug. 29, 2013, Fairfax police began a criminal investigation and provided the results to Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh. Morrogh asked the police that November for prior internal affairs involving Torres as part of his deliberations on whether to charge Torres with a crime.

But after consulting county attorneys Tianti and Karen L. Gibbons, Roessler refused to provide the prior Torres files, e-mails between Gibbons and Morrogh show. Morrogh referred the case to the Justice Department in January 2014 to seek the files in federal court. It is not clear whether Tianti advised the Board of Supervisors of those developments.

In September 2014, with no movement from the Justice Department, Morrogh sought to arrange a meeting with Bulova to discuss the lack of cooperation from police in the Geer case, seemingly at the behest of the county attorney’s office. “When one section of the police department is instructed to withhold information from the investigating officers and the prosecutor, the integrity of the investigation is called into question,” Morrogh wrote.

Tianti responded that she was Bulova’s attorney and would need to be present. Morrogh inquired about speaking to the board at a public meeting. Tianti answered, “I did not know of a way for you to do so,” the e-mails show.

When the e-mail exchange was made public in February, Bulova said she had never been told that Morrogh wanted a meeting and that she would have met with the prosecutor.

Various supervisors expressed frustration with the county attorney’s office, and Tianti was placed on leave in March.

Antonio Olivo contributed to this report.

Do you fuck'n believe this?

Fairfax police chief responds to Iraq vet’s complaint

 By Andrew Mollenbeck |@mollenbeck WTOPAugust 7, 2015 8:55 pm

WASHINGTON — Fairfax County police officers acted “safely and lawfully” when confronting a sleeping Iraq War veteran with guns drawn, Chief Edwin Roessler has determined.

The June 14 encounter came after a man called 911 to report a squatter in the model unit of an Alexandria apartment building.

“I’m just concerned about squatters using this as a routine place to squat and then breaking into my office when I’m not here,” the unidentified caller said, according to a recording of the 911 call provided by police.

But Alex Horton had permission to stay in the model unit while his was being repaired. The door was left slightly open, which led the caller to believe he had entered without authorization.

Horton’s subsequent op-ed in The Washington Post about the ensuing encounter compared the police response to raids he experienced in war.

He likened the police response with guns drawn to a “troubling approach to law enforcement nationwide.”

Roessler on Friday wrote to Horton to explain the results of the inquiry into his officers’ actions.

He wrote that they had tried to determine if the man in the model unit had permission to be there, but offices were closed and the security guard didn’t know Horton had been allowed to stay in the unit.

Police also knocked and announced themselves before entering the unlocked apartment, but Horton hadn’t come to the door.

That’s when they entered the apartment, with two officers holding their guns at what Roessler described as “the ready position.”

“Let me see your hands — don’t move,” one officer was quoted as saying as they entered the bedroom and performed a “protective sweep.”

Roessler says the department investigated the officers’ behavior after Horton filed a complaint the next day. The investigating officer found that the officers’ actions “were in compliance with all applicable rules, laws, and regulations.”

Horton’s Op-Ed prompted a second inquiry, which Roessler says determined that “the officers acted based on reasonable suspicion that a crime was occurring and took appropriate actions to safely resolve their investigation,” he writes. “I fully understand what you have articulated well about the officers’ tactics in this situation.”

He ended the letter by thanking Horton for his own service.

Fairfax County has faced its own share of scrutiny over its use of force policies since the death of John Geer, who was shot outside his Springfield home in 2013 by Officer Adam Torres. It took a lawsuit before police would release Torres’ name and prosecutors still have not decided whether he should face criminal charges.

The county announced Friday that Torres no longer works

Game changer! Fairfax county cop guns down dog, dog gets blamed

WHAT'S THE POINT IN POSTING THE ENTIRE STORY?  

Police Officer Cleared in 2014 Shooting of Dog

An investigation found "no basis for criminal liability," according to the Fairfax County Police Department.

When asked how she would handle the cops investigating the cops and once again finding the cops innocent, Sharon "Show me the money" Bulova said  “I will form a toothless and costly committee to make suggestion to the police department which the police department will reject but that that way I’ll look like I actually got off my fat ass and did something"

Give these young people a medal for being good and concerned citizens.

THANK YOU  MIKE CURTIS AND LORELEI MCFLY (really?) FOR ORGANIZING THIS EVENT. YOU ARE MAKING YOUR NATION A BETTER PLACE 

 'Night Out Against Police Crime' Held By Activists In Fairfax County

By: Michael Pope

August 5, 2015

WAMU/Michael Pope

Protesters gather outside the Fairfax County Police Department to stage an event they called a Night Out Against Police Crime.

Across America, police officers and their leaders were out Tuesday night celebrating National Night Out, a celebration of police traditionally held on the first Tuesday in August. But a growing sense of distrust of Fairfax County Police has created a rival event in Fairfax County, a Night Out Against Police Crime. The idea is to call attention to a series of high-profile cases in Fairfax County.

"Obviously the police don't want themselves to be the focus," says Mike Curtis, one of the chief organizers of the protest, which took place outside police headquarters. "But they are responsible for a great deal of serious crime here in Fairfax County with the murder of no less than seven innocent unarmed people in recent years. So we think it's important to highlight that as well."

 Mike Curtis and Lorelei McFly organized the event.

One of the people attending the protest was Chuck Modaino. He came from Silver Spring. So what brought him all the way out to Fairfax County?

"The idea that you can go and kill someone in broad daylight, sometimes even on video, and not get arrested for it is so outrageous that the better question is why aren't more people out here?" asks Modaino.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler acknowledges his department has suffered a crisis of confidence since the death of John Geer, the unarmed man from Springfield whose death in 2013 prompted the creation of an Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission. The activists behind Tuesday's event began organizing after the death of Geer, using social media and public rallies to draw attention to the case and the lack of information available from the Fairfax County Police Department.

"The pressure that we've put on has helped lead to the establishment of the Ad Hoc Commission, and it's definitely raised awareness in the community," says Lorelei McFly, one of the chief organizers of the event. "Slowly our officials may be getting the idea that they can't just wait for this to blow over anymore."

By Election Day, when all seats on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will be up for election, the commission is set to issue a series of recommendations. Those recommendations could radically transform how the department works and what kind of details it releases to the public.

Here's a great idea!

A task force looking to cut as much as $100 million from the budget of one of the nation’s largest school systems has suggested that major savings could come from getting rid of all school sports, limiting extracurricular activities and increasing class sizes.

Here’s an idea……take it from the cops…..take the money from the cops budget…..if they have enough to keep a cold blooded killer on the payroll for almost three years while he sits around at home watching TV and can afford $3,000,000 to John Geer’s family and another $1,000,000 to Sal Polisi’s family….take the money from the cops and give it to the kids.

They won’t use it to kill anybody.

the cost of a free press

Prostitution Charge Dropped in Case an Albany Journalist Called Retaliation

By JESSE McKINLEY

 AUG. 9, 2015

ALBANY — In March 2012, just blocks from the State Capitol, several law enforcement officers stormed into a second-floor spa and arrested a woman, accusing her of soliciting money for sexual acts. An invasive strip search was done, thousands of dollars were seized and the woman, Min Liu, was soon charged with prostitution.

But it was the woman’s employer at the Green Garden Asian Spa who provoked the uproar: Bin Cheng, the wife of J. Robert Port, who was the investigations editor at The Times Union of Albany.

Almost as soon as Ms. Liu was arrested, Mr. Port accused the police of targeting his wife’s business in retaliation for a series of articles he had shepherded into the newspaper that called into question the tactics and practices of an Albany County sheriff’s drug unit.

“I already knew that this unit was investigating my wife,” said Mr. Port, 59, who is also a former adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. “I knew they were watching her.”

Ms. Cheng, 46, was not at the spa during the raid, nor was she ever charged with any crime, but the implication that she was involved in nefarious activities hovered over Mr. Port’s family, he said.

“This went on for three years, a cloud over a person’s head and a cloud hanging over my wife’s business,” he said, reiterating that he believed the arrest was related to “the work I was doing with the Albany Times Union investigating local police.”

A city court judge in Albany last week dismissed the charge, a misdemeanor, against Ms. Liu, after county prosecutors concluded that the case should be dropped “in the interest of justice.”

The order, by Judge Gary F. Stiglmeier, outlined the reasons for the dismissal, including the lack of witnesses “or other evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” other than the testimony of the city detective who alleged the crime. That detective, Scott D. Gavigan, had been working with the unit Mr. Port had helped investigate, and was in the spa with Ms. Liu at the time of the sting.

Ms. Liu’s lawyer, Kevin A. Luibrand, hailed the decision, which was made on July 28, as long overdue and said that his client — a 56-year-old Chinese immigrant and grandmother with no previous criminal record — had endured a cavity search during the arrest, and “continued to experience significant distress as a result of the charges,” including hindering her ability to find work.

In his legal filings and an interview last week, Mr. Luibrand said there was no case against his client: No “buy money” for the alleged sexual acts was found, nor had Detective Gavigan produced a recording of the transaction he asserted had occurred. Mr. Luibrand also said the police had at one point falsely suggested drug activity was taking place at the spa.

“The overkill on this case was profound,” he said.

Both Mr. Luibrand and Mr. Port said they believed that the Albany police had arrested Ms. Liu, who always asserted her innocence, because they mistook her for Mr. Port’s wife.

 “They didn’t know one Chinese woman from another,” Mr. Port said.

Steven A. Smith Jr., a spokesman for the Albany Police Department, had no comment on the particulars of the case, but suggested that it would approach such cases differently.

“If we had to take on one of these operations in the future,” he said, “we would certainly weigh out our investigatory options before making our decisions.”

A spokeswoman for David Soares, the Albany County district attorney, said the decision to support the dismissal came after evaluating the evidence and finding “significant proof problems.”

The drug unit that Mr. Port and Brendan J. Lyons, a reporter, investigated was disbanded around the same time as the raid at the Green Garden, according to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple. The raid also prompted an internal review. Sheriff Apple’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the Green Garden case, the drug unit or the findings of that internal investigation.

Mr. Luibrand said Ms. Liu, who lives in Flushing, Queens, did not speak English fluently but was a longtime aesthetician and was pleased that her name had been cleared. “She’s thrilled by it, she’s happy,” he said.

Mr. Port, who left The Times Union in 2013, said on Wednesday that his wife, who declined to be interviewed, also felt relieved. He said that her business had expanded to four spas in the capital region, with eight employees total.

Still, while he and Ms. Cheng have tried to move on, Mr. Port said that the case had left him with even more questions about law enforcement behavior.

“I think police need to behave themselves,” he said. “And police need to be policed.”

Ho

Breaking News! Fairfax County Police to investigate Fairfax County Police!!!!!

Tomorrows breaking News: Fairfax county police investigated the fairfax county police and found nothing wrong!

Sharon "Show me the money Bulova comments "police problem? what police problem?'

Review examines Fairfax Co. police raid on Iraq veteran

 By Dick Uliano

August 3, 2015 4:24 pm

WASHINGTON — Did Fairfax County police respond properly to a potentially dangerous situation, or did they overreact?

An internal review is expected to be completed this week into the June 14 Fairfax County police action in which an Iraq War veteran woke up to find three police officers standing in the bedroom of his Alexandria apartment.

Alex Horton was asleep in bed when police, with guns drawn, burst into his bedroom. He claims they pointed guns at his head.

The police were summoned when neighbors spotted Horton in the complex’s model apartment unit, unaware that building managers had temporarily moved him there while repairs were being made to his apartment.

Police responded to a call of “unlawful entry.”

Brad Carrutters, president of Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 — a police union, writes on a Facebook that “officers followed proper protocols.”

He says police had no idea what they might face and “correctly used their firearms to stabilize the situation,” he wrote on the social networking site.

But writing in The Washington Post, Horton has criticized the police action, branding it an example of a “troubling approach to law enforcement, nationwide.” Horton says the entry with guns drawn raised the risk of injury or death when the matter could have been resolved if police had checked with building managers or building security.

As a member of the Army’s 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Horton conducted raids in Iraq on the homes of high-value targets. He contends that actions like those of Fairfax County Police June 14 “has caused public trust in law enforcement to deteriorate.”

Fairfax County police have been conducting interviews in an internal inquiry to determine the facts of the case. The report is expected to be completed later this week and Police Chief Edwin Roessler is expected to deliver a statement on the inquiry’s findings.

Follow @WTOP on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.

In Iraq, I raided insurgents; at home, the police raided me

We learned in Iraq to talk with people first, draw our weapons second

By Alex Horton

I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.

It was just past 9 a.m., and I was still under the covers. The only visible target was my head.

In the shouting and commotion, I felt an instant familiarity. I’d been here before. This was a raid.

I had done this a few dozen times myself, 6,000 miles away from my Alexandria, Va., apartment. As an Army infantryman in Iraq, I’d always been on the trigger side of the weapon. Now that I was on the barrel side, I recalled basic training’s most important firearm rule: Aim only at something you intend to kill.

I had conducted the same kind of raid on suspected bombmakers and high-value insurgents. But the Fairfax County officers in my apartment were aiming their weapons at a target whose rap sheet consisted of parking tickets and an overdue library book.

I was terrified. Lying facedown, I knew that any move I made could be viewed as a threat. Instinct told me to get up and protect myself. Training told me that if I did, these officers would shoot me dead.

In a panic, I asked the officers what was going on but got no immediate answer. Their tactics were similar to the ones I used to clear rooms during the height of guerilla warfare in Iraq. I could almost admire it — their fluid sweep from the bedroom doorway to the distant corner. They stayed clear of one another’s lines of fire in case they needed to empty their Sig Sauer pistols into me.

They were well-trained. But I knew that means little when adrenaline governs an imminent-danger scenario, real or imagined. Triggers are pulled. Mistakes are made.

I spread my arms out to either side. An officer jumped onto my bed and locked handcuffs onto my wrists. The officers rolled me from side to side, searching my boxers for weapons, then yanked me up to sit on the edge of the bed.

I was stunned. I searched my memory for any incident that would justify a police raid. Then it clicked.

Earlier in the week, the managers of my apartment complex had moved me to a model unit while a crew repaired a leak in my dishwasher. But they hadn’t informed my temporary neighbors. So when one resident noticed the door slightly cracked open to what he presumed was an unoccupied apartment, he looked in, saw me sleeping and called the police to report a squatter.

Sitting on the edge of the bed dressed only in underwear, I laughed. The situation was ludicrous. My only mistake had been failing to make sure the apartment door was completely closed before I threw myself into bed the night before.

I told the officers to check my driver’s license, nodding toward my khaki pants on the floor. It showed my address at a unit in the same complex. As the fog of their chaotic entry lifted, the officers realized it had been an error. They walked me into the living room and removed the cuffs, though two continued to stand over me as the third contacted management to confirm my story. Once they were satisfied, they left.

When I later visited the police station to gather details about what went wrong, I met the shift commander, Lt. Erik Rhoads. I asked why his officers hadn’t contacted management before they raided the apartment. Why did they classify the incident as a forced entry, when the information they had suggested something innocuous? Why not evaluate the situation before escalating it?

Lt. Rhoads defended the procedure. It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the apprehension of suspects, he told me.

I noted that the officers could have sought information from the apartment complex security guard that would have resolved the matter, but he said, “It doesn’t matter whatsoever what was said or not said at the security booth.”

This is where Lt. Rhoads is wrong.

A weapons-first culture

We’ve seen this troubling approach to law enforcement nationwide, in militarized police responses to nonviolent protesters and in fatal police shootings of unarmed citizens. The culture that encourages police officers to engage their weapons before gathering information promotes the mind-set that nothing, including citizen safety, is more important than officers’ personal security. That approach has caused public trust in law enforcement to deteriorate.

It’s the same culture that characterized the early phases of the Iraq war, in which I served a 15-month tour in 2006 and 2007. Soldiers left their sprawling bases in armored vehicles, leveling buildings with missile strikes and shooting up entire blocks during gun battles with insurgents, only to return to their protected bases and do it all again hours later.

The short-sighted notion that we should always protect ourselves endangered us more in the long term. It was a flawed strategy that could often create more insurgents than it stopped and inspired some Iraqis to hate us rather than help us.

In one instance in Baghdad, a stray round landed in a compound that our unit was building. An overzealous officer decided that we were under attack and ordered machine guns and grenade launchers to shoot at distant rooftops. A row of buildings caught fire, and we left our compound on foot, seeking to capture any injured fighters by entering structures choked with flames.

Instead, we found a man frantically pulling his furniture out of his house. “Thank you for your security!” he yelled in perfect English. He pointed to the billowing smoke. “This is what you call security?”

We didn’t find any insurgents. There weren’t any. But it was easy to imagine that we had created some in that fire. Similarly, when U.S. police officers use excessive force to control nonviolent citizens or respond to minor incidents, they lose supporters and public trust.

That’s a problem, because law enforcement officers need the cooperation of the communities they patrol to do their jobs effectively. In the early stages of the war, the U.S. military overlooked that reality as well. Leaders defined success as increasing military hold on geographic terrain, while the human terrain was the real battle.

For example, when our platoon entered Iraq’s volatile Diyala province in early 2007, children at a school plugged their ears just before an IED exploded beneath one of our vehicles. The kids knew what was coming, but they saw no reason to warn us. Instead, they watched us drive right into the ambush. One of our men died and, in the subsequent crossfire, several insurgents and children were killed. We saw Iraqis cheering and dancing at the blast crater as we left the area hours later.

With the U.S. effort in Iraq faltering, Gen. David Petraeus unveiled a new counterinsurgency strategy. He believed that showing more restraint during gunfights would help foster Iraqis’ trust in U.S. forces and that forming better relationships with civilians would improve our intelligence-gathering. We refined our warrior mentality — the one that directed us to protect ourselves above all else — with a community-building component.

My unit began to patrol on foot almost exclusively, which was exceptionally more dangerous than staying inside our armored vehicles. We relinquished much of our personal security by entering dimly lit homes in insurgent strongholds. We didn’t know if the hand we would shake at each door held a detonator to a suicide vest or a small glass of hot, sugary tea.

But, as a result, we better understood our environment and earned the allegiance of some people in it. The benefits quickly became clear.

One day during that bloody summer, insurgents loaded a car with hundreds of pounds of explosives and parked it by a school. They knew we searched every building for hidden weapons caches, and they waited for us to gather near the car. But as we turned the corner toward the school, several Iraqis told us about the danger. We evacuated civilians from the area and called in a helicopter gunship to fire at the vehicle.

The resulting explosion pulverized half the building and blasted the car’s engine block through two cement walls. Shrapnel dropped like jagged hail as far as a quarter-mile away.

If we had not risked our safety by patrolling the neighborhood on foot, trusting our sources and gathering intelligence, it would have been a massacre. But no one was hurt in the blast.

Reform police training

Domestic police forces would benefit from a similar change in strategy. Instead of relying on aggression, they should rely more on relationships. Rather than responding to a squatter call with guns raised, they should knock on the door and extend a hand. But unfortunately, my encounter with officers is just one in a stream of recent examples of police placing their own safety ahead of those they’re sworn to serve and protect.

Lt. Rhoads, the Fairfax County police officer, was upfront about this mind-set. He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers.

Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate. Those rules are established in police training, which often emphasizes a violent response over deescalation. Recruits spend an average of eight hours learning how to neutralize tense situations; they spend more than seven times as many hours at the weapons range.

Of course, officers’ safety is vital, and they’re entitled to defend themselves and the communities they serve. But they’re failing to see the connection between their aggressive postures and the hostility they’ve encountered in Ferguson, Mo.; Baltimore and other communities.

When you level assault rifles at protesters, you create animosity. When you kill an unarmed man on his own property while his hands are raised — as Fairfax County police did in 2013 — you sow distrust. And when you threaten to Taser a woman during a routine traffic stop (as happened to 28-year-old Sandra Bland, who died in a Texas jail last month), you cultivate a fear of police. This makes policing more dangerous for everyone.

I understood the risks of war when I enlisted as an infantryman. Police officers should understand the risks in their jobs when they enroll in the academy. That means knowing that personal safety can’t always come first. That is why it’s service. That’s why it’s sacrifice.

Alex Horton, a member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project, served as an infantryman in Iraq with the Army’s 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He wrote this for The Washington Post.

By withholding jail video, Fairfax County sends a message that it opposes accountability

By Editorial Board July 28

EVEN BEFORE the violence a year ago in Ferguson, Mo., after the police killing of Michael Brown, many law enforcement agencies across the country responded to incidents involving the use of deadly force by proactively releasing dashcam, body-camera and other video footage when it existed. The idea, as a top police official told The Post after video of a 12-year-old boy killed by a rookie patrol officer in Cleveland was released days after the incident in November, is “in the spirit of being open and fair with our community.”

By a quick, partial and unscientific scan of Google, we see videos released by police and other law agencies involving fatal incidents over the past 18 months in Boston; Tulsa; Gardena, Calif.; Longview, Tex.; North Charleston, S.C.; Albuquerque ; and, in the recent arrest of Sandra Bland — who later died in jail in an alleged suicide — Prairie View, Tex.

If only the authorities in Fairfax County had gotten the message.

In Fairfax, nearly six months after the fact, officials in the police, sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices continue to withhold from the public a video depicting an in-custody struggle at the county jail between guards and Natasha McKenna, a mentally ill inmate. Ms. McKenna, who was shot repeatedly with a Taser stun gun after she had been handcuffed, never regained consciousness; she died five days later, on Feb. 8.

Sheriff Stacey A. Kincaid, whose office runs the jail, and Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., whose department conducted the investigation, both pledged their commitment to candor and transparency. So why haven’t they released the video, which sources tell us runs more than 30 minutes and captures much of the prolonged confrontation that led to Ms. McKenna’s death?

Mr. Roessler, for his part, has said the video cannot be released because it is “evidence.” But the videos in Boston, Tulsa, Gardena, Longview, North Charleston, Albuquerque and Prairie View were also “evidence.” The authorities in those places released them nonetheless — and in most instances, they did so quickly.

In a number of those incidents, police and other law enforcement officials appear to conduct themselves professionally. Other incidents are embarrassing for the police, portraying what looks like indefensible and possibly criminal use of force, including in the killing of Walter Scott, an unarmed man shot in the back in North Charleston as he tried to flee from an officer after a traffic stop in April.

In addition to releasing videos, in most cases authorities also publicly identified the officers involved. In many, the officers involved were placed on administrative duty or leave until the outcome of the investigation.

In Fairfax, none of the six sheriff’s deputies who struggled with Ms. McKenna have yet been identified, either by name or by race. (Ms. McKenna was black.) In Fairfax, not one was placed on administrative duty or leave. In Fairfax, mum’s the word.

Here’s the relevant question for Fairfax authorities: Are they content to brand the county and its law enforcement agencies as among the least accountable in the nation?

Grand jury investigating John Geer police shooting hears officers’ testimony

By Tom Jackman

The 2013 Fairfax County police killing of an unarmed Springfield man heard from at least 16 witnesses in its first week of work, and will return for more testimony and evidence on Aug. 17, Fairfax prosecutors said Friday.

The nine-person grand jury will decide whether to indict Officer Adam D. Torres, 32, for the fatal shooting of John B. Geer, 46, who was standing in the doorway of his Springfield home when Torres shot him once in the chest from a distance of about 17 feet. Torres did not testify during the first five days of the grand jury’s meeting, and his lawyer has declined to comment on whether Torres will volunteer to testify. Torres, who has not been disciplined by the police and is on paid administrative leave, has not spoken publicly about the incident. Fairfax County has already agreed to pay Geer’s teenaged daughters $2.95 million to settle their civil suit.

After hearing from the lead investigator in the case, homicide Det. John Farrell, the grand jury heard about 90 minutes of testimony from Geer’s partner of 24 years, Maura Harrington. Harrington said she listened to the 75-minute taped statement she gave to Farrell immediately after being informed Geer was dead on Aug. 29, 2013, and was only asked a couple of questions by the grand jurors.

The next day, the jury heard from Jeff Stewart, Geer’s best friend, and Don Geer, Geer’s father, who were both watching from about 70 yards away when Torres fired the shot. Stewart listened to his own taped statement from that day and said the jurors were engaged and asked him about 10 questions, mostly about where Geer’s hands were when the shot was fired. Torres told police that Geer had quickly jerked his hands to his waist, and having previously shown Torres a holstered gun, Torres feared Geer might have another gun.

Stewart said he told the jurors that “John was very calm. From what I understand, he said, ‘I don’t want to get shot. I don’t want to die today.'” [Those are remarks from Geer reported by other officers nearby.] He said he told the jurors that Geer could be volatile, “but never physical.” Stewart said his taped statement showed he was angry at Geer, and critical of him, and “I’m ashamed of what I said about my friend, but it really has no relevance to the 30 minutes I’m talking about” when Geer was refusing to come out of his house. Stewart maintained that Geer’s hands were slowly moving from the top of the screen door to near his shoulders when Torres fired.

Don Geer testified for about 30 minutes. “I got no impression whatsoever” from the grand jurors, he said. “None of them asked me any questions at all.” He said prosecutors asked him to elaborate on the position of his son’s hands, which Don Geer also placed at about head height. Lydia Gifford, a Geer neighbor and longtime friend, also testified briefly, but she did not see the shooting.

Next came the officers involved, other than Torres. Officer David Neil was dispatched to the domestic disturbance call along with Torres. In his original statement to police, he said that Geer held up something dark, but he could not see what it was. Both Torres and Neil told investigators that Geer had told them, “I have a gun; I will use it if I need to because you guys have guns.”

After several minutes on the scene, Neil was assigned to interview Harrington and report back on Geer and his situation, which he did. Neil testified for more than two hours. He, and all other police officers who testified, declined to discuss their testimony afterward. Virginia law does not prohibit special grand jury witnesses from discussing their testimony, but prosecutors and grand jurors are prohibited from talking.

After Neil came Officer Rodney Barnes. Barnes, a former Navy seaman and trained negotiator, showed up at Geer’s house shortly after Torres and Neil, reports show, and began speaking calmly with Geer while Torres kept his gun trained on Geer’s chest. After about 40 minutes, Geer was shot while still in conversation with Barnes.

Barnes was first interviewed by Det. Chris Flanagan five hours later, reports show. “When the shot happened, his hands were up,” Barnes told Flanagan. “I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I didn’t see what he saw.” Flanagan later wrote, “Officer Barnes stated that he was upset because he didn’t understand why Mr. Geer was shot.”

When Barnes emerged from listening to his statement on Tuesday evening, his eyes were red and he had a tissue in his hand, as if reliving the moment was again upsetting. He continued testifying on Wednesday.

The jury did not hear witnesses Wednesday afternoon. At some point, prosecutors may have played for them the two taped statements given by Torres in September 2013, in which he said Geer showed him a holstered gun and then immediately placed it on the floor. Torres told detectives that Geer “brought both his hands down really quick near his waist, and I pulled the trigger one time, and hit him under his right rib cage.” Torres, accompanied by his attorney John Carroll, also told the detectives, “I meant to pull that trigger…It’s not accidental…No, it was justified, I have no doubt about that at all, I don’t feel sorry for shooting the guy at all.”

On Thursday, the two other officers nearest to Barnes and Torres took the stand. Officer David Parker, interviewed by Farrell and Flanagan in September 2013, made a comment to them after his taped interview was over, according to Farrell’s report: “‘It’s not good. He killed that guy and he didn’t need to.’ Officer Parker went on to say that he didn’t understand why Officer Torres shot.” Parker was on the stand for about 90 minutes, as was Officer Benjamin Kushner, who told the detectives in 2013 that “he did not shoot Mr. Geer because he did not feel that the threat had risen to the level of having to shoot however he did not disagree with Officer Torres’s decision to shoot,” according to Farrell’s report.

Other officers who were on the scene at Pebble Brook Court that day, as well as an official from the Virginia medical examiner’s office, also testified.

On Friday, now-Capt. Ron Manzo, who was watching the Geer episode unfold from a short distance away, testified for less than an hour. He told investigators in 2013 that Geer’s hands were “at about his shoulder height” when Torres fired. Manzo was the fourth officer, in addition to Barnes, Parker and Kushner, to contradict Torres’s claim that Geer had brought his hands down to his waist in a threatening manner. An officer, a detective and a crime scene investigator also testified Friday before the grand jury finished.

Morrogh said he could not discuss who might be subpoenaed, either by prosecutors or the grand jurors, or when the grand jury might reach a decision on whether to charge Torres. He has said previously that he wanted to use a grand jury to lock in the witnesses’ statements under oath.

Tom Jackman is a native of Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.

Fairfax police refuse information to father of police shooting victim David Masters

Where Sharon "Show me the money" on this? Where's the board of supervisors on this?

By Tom Jackman July 28 

A request by the father of David A. Masters, the unarmed motorist shot and killed by a Fairfax County police officer in 2009, to see the investigative files and learn why the shooting happened has been denied by Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler. Roessler said that since there is no statute of limitations on murder or manslaughter, he will not release the information and cited the clause in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that Fairfax police use to deny FOIA requests for crime reports in virtually every case, according to areport issued last week by a committee studying Fairfax police communications.

But there is no statute of limitations on any felony in Virginia, giving Fairfax police justification to deny all felony crime report requests forever. And Roessler’s denial letter, received Monday by Masters’ father, retired Army colonel Barrie Masters of Sanford, Fla., gives no indication that the Fairfax police ever intend to change their policy of refusing access to police reports in officer-involved shootings, instead discussing “review by an independent auditor” and “a higher level of accountability for all.”

Masters, 52, was shot as he drove away from Officer David S. Ziants on Route 1 in the Alexandria area of Fairfax on Nov. 13, 2009. Ziants was not charged with a crime because he believed, mistakenly, that Masters was reaching for a gun, was driving a stolen vehicle and had run over another officer, Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh said in January 2010. But Ziants was fired for violating the department’s use of deadly force policy.

But unlike the police shootings of Salvatore Culosi Jr. in 2006 and John B. Geer in 2013, there was no civil suit to force Fairfax police to release information about the Masters case. Masters had named his ex-wife and stepdaughter as the executors of his estate, but under Virginia law they were not entitled to recover any damages since they were not his legal family, though they were his daily companions and closest friends. Masters’ brother-in-law attempted to file a suit anyway in 2011, but it went nowhere.

Meanwhile, Masters’ father watched from a distance, his anger slowly burning. Then in May of this year, Roessler suddenly released an in-car video camera tape of Ziants hustling up to Masters’ vehicle and then firing shots just out of camera range, while another officer screams at him to stop shooting. This outraged Barrie Masters, who earlier this month sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the police seeking everything related to the case.

In the letter below, Roessler denied access to everything. “In an effort to provide transparency to you on the internal administrative investigation,” Roessler wrote, “the Police Department terminated Officer Ziants’ employment on March 24, 2011.” This was publicly reported by The Post in June 2011, though a police spokeswoman then said Ziants had been fired on May 6, 2011.

Roessler goes on to discuss that his department has been working with the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission “to hopefully develop a process of increasing transparency in many areas including those of officer-involved shooting cases.” The chief explains that he hopes to create a review process so that the investigations are thorough and that once a case is completely resolved, it could be reviewed by an independent auditor. He does not mention ever making any investigative documents publicly available.

Roessler’s letter, dated Friday, was written a day after he was asked by The Post about releasing police reports and said,  “I’m considering a change. There’s got to be more dialogue about how we respond to this. This is a national dialogue, and the profession needs to change. I need to help this department change. This is the community’s voice and I need to actively listen and implement where I can.”

Barrie Masters responded in an e-mail to Roessler Monday night that his use of the FOIA exemption for “criminal investigative files” is something “You and your associates have hidden behind this assertion for almost 6 years now, and of course, you well know that the current law does not say the information requested is exempt from release only that it can be released at the discretion of the custodian.  Your own Police Practices Review Commission, Communications Subcommittee, (which I fully support) has recommended you end the blanket approach to suppressing information under the excuse of your own interpretation of 2.2-3706 (2) and move toward the timely release of all criminal investigative information..It is time that Fairfax County Government and Fairfax County Law Enforcement join the rest of the Nation in advocating transparency.”

Here is Roessler’s letter denying Masters’ FOIA request:

Tom Jackman is a native of Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.

Nazi state tactics by a bored police force and the Board of Supervisors say and does nothing to stop it

More Than 900 Vehicles stopped by the cops at one check point in the span of several hours

The idiots on the Fairfax County Police force stopped 969 cars at Richmond Highway and Mount Eagle Drive.

They made 3 arrests for drunk driving but refuse to release information on how much alcohol the drivers had consumed.

The effective rate is less than 0.05%, less is figured on an hourly bases. 

My dog could have made more arrests by walking around the neighborhood for a few hours.

You paid for it and the cops got away with it again.