Virginia court
blocks reinstatement of former Fairfax County officer
A Virginia
Court of Appeals has blocked former Fairfax County police officer Wesley
Shifflett's attempt to get his job back.
Posted October
17, 2024 9:42pm EDT
We called the Fairfax County police for help....the punks they sent threatened to arrest us. One cop tells my wife that if she keeps crying he'll arrest her and the other cop, La Forge or something, says to me "You call the police this what you get" I said that was wrong and he said "Go ahead, say more fuck'n thing prick" and I thought "Well if you insist".
Virginia court
blocks reinstatement of former Fairfax County officer
A Virginia
Court of Appeals has blocked former Fairfax County police officer Wesley
Shifflett's attempt to get his job back.
Posted October
17, 2024 9:42pm EDT
....here's what the cops don't tell you, in half the cases the cops won't show up in court and more than one third of all the cases will be dismissed by the judge
Remeber the last guy who barricaded himself against the FCPD? Yeah, a cop who was arguing with wife on the phone....while we were paying him......shot the barricaded guy dead.
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The increase in violent crime in Fairfax County is among the highest in the country, according to a new report that tracked violent crimes in 2023.
D.C. saw the largest increase of any major city in the country for violent crime while Fairfax County ranked seventh in the country with an 8.7% increase in violent crimes which is a larger increase than nearby Prince George’s County and it’s a larger increase than Montgomery County, Maryland.
This is all according to a Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) report which collected homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault crime data from 69 police departments across the country for the first nine months of this year and compared crime trends to the first nine months of last year.
MCCA found that Fairfax County saw a sizeable increase in the number of rapes and aggravated assaults.
On Friday, 7News requested additional crime data from the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD).
According to FCPD, shoplifting is up 40%, assaults are up 14%, auto thefts are up 9.6% and Fairfax County police citations for offenses are up 54%.
This comes as several county leaders have downplayed the crime increases in Fairfax County in recent years by making comments like this:
“We are still the safest jurisdiction of our size all across the country,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano told 7News Reporter Nick Minock in March 2022 during an interview.
“Our residents are smart they know they are living in a county that is the safest of any jurisdiction of its size in the country!” Chair Jeff McKay told 7News Reporter Nick Minock in February 2022 during an interview.
McKay reiterated this talking point in a September 6, 2023, message to the community, saying “Fairfax County is still the safest place of its size to live in America. Keep that in mind the next time you see something concerning on NextDoor or talk to a friend or family member about national trends.”
Former MPD officer sues police chief, city for defamation, wrongful termination
Tyler Timberlake is seeking over $250,000 in damages
BY: DEENA WINTER - DECEMBER 22, 2023 4:49 PM
A former Virginia police officer who was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in January despite being involved in a highly publicized excessive force case is now suing Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara and the city for terminating him.
Tyler Timberlake alleges in the lawsuit that the Minneapolis police chief has repeatedly lied about what he knew about Timberlake’s past before signing off on his hiring.
Just days after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd by pressing his knee into his neck on a south Minneapolis street, Timberlake, then a Fairfax County police officer, made headlines when he repeatedly used a stun gun on a disoriented, unarmed Black man wandering a residential street. Body camera video shows Timberlake jamming his knee into the man’s back and shoulder while the man said he couldn’t breathe.
Timberlake was later acquitted by a jury of assault and battery, was not formally disciplined and was reinstated to his job.
After the Reformer first reported on Timberlake’s hiring in April, O’Hara released a statement saying he was “extremely concerned” about the hire and ordered a thorough investigation into MPD’s background checks and hiring processes.
Timberlake alleges the chief and city caused the loss of his reputation and career after they “induced” him to resign his job as a Virginia police officer and take a job at MPD, assuring him that the use-of-force case wouldn’t affect his employment.
But he says shortly after his hiring came to light in the press, “those assurances turned to smoke.” He was put on limited duty status and later fired while still on probation, when he had no civil service or union protections.
Timberlake is suing for defamation and wrongful termination, seeking over $250,000 in damages, plus attorney’s fees, reinstatement, back pay and compensatory damages. The suit says he has no job and no prospects, with “his reputation in tatters.”
MPD and O’Hara deferred comment to the City Attorney’s Office, which released a statement saying it is reviewing the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that “in O’Hara’s panicked efforts to evade responsibility for Timberlake’s hiring, he told a series of lies to the public, including that Timberlake had failed to disclose, or had misrepresented, the incident in Virginia during the hiring process, that O’Hara did not know about the incident in Virginia, (and) that something was wrong with the MPD hiring process because it had failed to identify the incident in Virginia.”
The suit says MPD Officer Craig Johnson fully investigated the Virginia incident, and wrote a summary of his findings in his background report, which was given to hiring personnel.
Timberlake said he disclosed the incident on his MPD application and during “every phase of the overall onboarding process,” offering to provide all video and audio footage of it.
Before being offered a job, he had a final interview on Nov. 8, 2022, in Minneapolis, where he met with O’Hara, Deputy Chief Troy Schoenberger, Chief of Staff Christopher Gaiters, and Human Resources Representative Heather Rende. They discussed the Virginia incident “in great deal,” according to the suit.
Timberlake said he asked O’Hara whether he had any concerns about how he would be treated because of the Virginia case, and O’Hara indicated “he did not care about the prior critical incident, and that if Timberlake is doing the right thing and meeting community expectations, he would not have any problems from the chief.”
Timberlake says he was then offered the job less than 15 minutes after the interview ended, while he was walking to his car. He resigned his job and moved to Minnesota, where he began the job in January.
O’Hara has previously said it was his second day on the job when he sat in on Timberlake’s interview as an “observer,” not a “participant.”
The Reformer first inquired about the hiring on April 12, after which Timberlake alleges O’Hara “began to change his story after media scrutiny,” and wrote in an April 19 internal email that he “was completely and totally unaware of his history.”
Timberlake wrote a May 15 letter to Mayor Jacob Frey, O’Hara and Human Resources Chief Nikki Odom accusing O’Hara of defaming him, and asked for an investigation into the matter.
On July 5, he was summoned to a meeting with Schoenberger and two lieutenants, and was told he was being terminated but not given a reason. Timberlake says he asked if his termination was related to political pressure, and Schoenberger said, “I’m not going to answer that.”
Months later, the city sent Timberlake a memo by O’Hara outlining his reason for the termination, saying Timberlake “engaged in conduct that would not meet our standards when he stepped into another officer’s call, failed to de-escalate, and used unreasonable force during a critical incident.”
O’Hara’s memo said he didn’t know about the conduct prior to viewing a video of it that wasn’t revealed during the hiring process. The chief wrote that he also took into account “concerns raised by community members following the media’s publication of the video.”
Timberlake alleges O’Hara harmed his reputation and defamed him multiple times by implying he concealed the Virginia incident during his background investigation. And he claims O’Hara disclosed information to the public that is supposed to remain private under state law.
He’s seeking compensation for loss of employment, mental distress, humiliation, embarrassment and an inability to find a job afterward “even at police departments that previously expressed interest in working with him.”
Timberlake also claims the city violated the Minnesota Whistleblower Act and he’s entitled to reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages and the expungement of adverse employment records.
Timberlake gives a detailed description of how and why he responded to the Virginia man the way he did, noting that he was called to a “high-crime area” frequented by a violent felon and PCP user with warrants out for his arrest. Timberlake admits he mistook another man for the felon, and that the man was later found to be under the influence of PCP and cocaine.
After being acquitted by a jury of three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery, Timberlake was reinstated as a police officer in Fairfax County. Their internal affairs unit found he violated their de-escalation policy, and issued a written reprimand. Timberlake appealed the finding, and it was reduced to an oral reprimand, which is not considered formal disciplinary action.
In the lawsuit, Timberlake also says he held the man down by his back and shoulder, not his neck, and disagreed with Chauvin’s “knee-on-neck restraint tactic” on Floyd.
Surprise,
surprise Sgt. Wesley Shifflett, the Fairfax
County cop who gunned down a man for s shop lifting has been found not guilty despite
the fact that Shifflett’s body camera video showing the moments after the
shooting, where Shifflett told a couple of officers how he told Johnson to show
his hands during the chase. However, Shifflett had actually yelled for Johnson
to “get to the ground.”
Fairfax
County cop Wesley Shifflett, charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless
discharge of a weapon in the killing of 37-year-old unarmed Timothy McCree
Johnson over a pair of sunglasses on Feb. 22, 2023 is finally going before a
court of law.
Shifflett
and another Fairfax County cop chased Johnson, during the night, on foot after
receiving a report from security guards that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from
a Nordstrom department store in Tysons Corner Center.
Shifflett told
another cop that he saw Johnson reaching for a weapon in his waistband but no
such weapon was found.
A woman is dead after a welfare check
by Fairfax County Police.
A cop knocked on the woman's door, the
woman answered the door, and immediately slammed it in the cops face. The cop
kept knocking. A few minutes later, the woman answered the door armed with a
knife and began slashing at the cop hitting him in the face.
So, of course, he shot her death.
No punches, wrestling, stun guns or batons.
Former FCPD officer seeks to get charges in fatal Tysons shooting dismissed
By Angela Woolsey
Published September 9, 2024 at 2:30PM|Updated September 10, 2024 at 12:51AM
The Fairfax County Courthouse (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
The former Fairfax County Police Department officer who fatally shot a D.C. man suspected of shoplifting two pairs of sunglasses from Nordstrom at Tysons Corner Center might not face a trial after all.
Defense attorneys for Wesley Shifflett filed a motion in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Friday (Sept. 6) seeking to “quash” the grand jury indictment that charged the former police sergeant with involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm for killing Timothy Johnson on Feb. 22, 2023.
Shifflett’s attorneys hope to convince a judge to dismiss the indictment at a hearing on Sept. 16, which would eliminate the need for a trial if the motion is granted.
“That’s going to be our case,” Simms Showers LLP partner Caleb Kershner confirmed to FFXnow, though he couldn’t share details of the argument since it contains information presented to the grand jury that’s sealed by a court order.
The defense team also filed motions on Friday that would exclude mentions of Johnson being unarmed, an expert witness called by prosecutors and evidence related to the police pursuit that preceded the shooting from the potential jury trial.
Previously scheduled for Sept. 16, the trial has been pushed back a day to allow for the additional hearing.
Per court records, the motions were filed around 2:45 p.m. after a roughly three-hour-long hearing where Judge Randy Bellows prohibited prior incidents of Shifflett drawing his gun from being discussed at the trial, while allowing evidence related to Johnson’s conviction of a misdemeanor assault in 2004.
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Barry Zweig argued that the jury should know about three incidents on Feb. 17, 2022, Oct. 25, 2022 and Feb. 10, 2023 where Shifflett pointed his gun at an unarmed person while investigating shoplifting reports at Tysons Corner Center.
“These incidents highlight Shifflett’s attitude towards those who are suspected of committing non-violent, low-level crime at the Tyson’s Corner Mall,” Zweig wrote in his motion. “On at least one occasion Shifflett drew his firearm on an individual who had been engaged in absolutely no criminal conduct.”
On Feb. 10, 2023, Shifflett pointed his gun at a passenger in the vehicle of a man who allegedly took a pair of sunglasses from a store, tried them on and then returned them. Shifflett wrote in a July 6, 2023 incident report that he pulled his gun when the passenger “began reaching in her waistband when she was instructed not to.”
Prosecutors also brought up a Sept. 25, 2022 incident involving an alleged theft at Nordstrom, but according to Kershner’s team, the officer in question was a different sergeant with the last name of Shifflett.
In his motion, Zweig noted that all of the targeted individuals were Black. However, he said at Friday’s hearing that he would leave that information — and the implication that racism played a role in the shooting — out of a trial to avoid creating unfair prejudice.
Even if race isn’t mentioned, Bellows said the prior incidents had “negligible” value in helping prosecutors prove their case, noting that they didn’t involve use-of-force or criminal allegations against Shifflett.
“I can’t make the assumption the Commonwealth was making that an officer chasing a fleeing individual who’s engaged in shoplifting should not pull a gun on these individuals,” Bellows said, adding that “redacting race would reduce, not eliminate prejudice.”
Kershner welcomed the decision, calling prosecutors’ argument “largely speculative in nature.”
“I think the judge rightly pointed out that you would have to show all the good acts and all the times that force wasn’t showed on larceny victims,” he said. “Even the Commonwealth admitted when they got up to argue that race really shouldn’t be an issue here, and I was glad to see they said that, because I think that’s absolutely the right thing.”
A spokesperson for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said they’re unable to comment because the case is ongoing.
Prosecutors argued Johnson’s assault conviction in 2004 should be excluded from the trial because of “the substantial time gap and the lack of relevance in circumstances.”
According to Zweig, Johnson was attempting to steal a vehicle at the home of an ATF agent in Maryland on May 19, 2003. When the agent confronted him, drawing his gun while standing behind the vehicle, Johnson backed up. The agent jumped out of the vehicle’s way and fired his gun, hitting Johnson.
Johnson was initially charged with first-degree attempted murder, though it’s unclear why the charge was later reduced. He served three years in prison as a juvenile, Zweig confirmed at the hearing.
Prosecutors also sought to exclude a 2019 involuntary manslaughter conviction stemming from a crash in Maryland. Johnson was reportedly intoxicated and speeding when he hit another vehicle, killing the driver, Zweig told the court.
“DWI resulting in death…is an act of recklessness rather than intentional violence,” Zweig said in his motion. “As such, it does not involve the kind of deliberate, aggressive conduct that would typically characterize the victim’s behavior in a situation where self-defense might be justified.”
However, defense attorney Matthew Noel argued both cases showed a “propensity for violence” and a tendency to flee from situations involving the police, suggesting Shifflett’s claim that he shot Johnson out of fear for his own safety “was reasonable.”
Bellows deemed the circumstances of the 2004 assault conviction similar enough to justify inclusion in a trial, but he said the DWI posed more of a challenge, stating that he will issue a decision this week.
About the Author
•
Angela Woolsey
Angela Woolsey is the site editor for FFXnow. A graduate of George Mason University, she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Fairfax County Times before joining Local News Now as the Tysons Reporter editor in 2020.
The Sonya Massey killing in Illinois raises the question again. Here’s where things stand on the vetting of new hires in Minneapolis.
By Editorial Board
Star Tribune
AUGUST 10, 2024 AT 7:00PM
The fatal shooting of a Black woman in her Illinois home by a white cop she had called for help once again highlights the critical importance of officer vetting. Turns out the policeman involved had a history of dubious behavior at previous jobs. Why was he hired at all?
It demonstrates once again the importance of thorough, comprehensive investigations of officer applicants’ backgrounds before that person is offered a law enforcement badge.
Here’s what happened: Sean Grayson, a deputy sheriff in Sangamon County, responded to a 911 call from Sonya Massey, who had reported a prowler. Grayson entered Massey’s home near Springfield and noticed she had a pot on her stove. Concerned that she might throw whatever was in that pot at him, he fired the three shots that killed her.
Massey, 36, had a history of mental illness, but the officer body cam video did not show that she acted aggressively during the interaction. That video evidence prompted Grayson’s boss, Sheriff Jack Campbell, to denounce the deputy’s behavior and fire him. Now Grayson, 30, faces three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
Campbell had hired Grayson in May 2023 to work for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department even though Grayson had been dismissed from the Army for the first of two drunken-driving convictions in which he had a weapon in his car and though he‘d frequently changed jobs.
“Six jobs in four years should have raised a red flag. And you would ask why he wasn’t hired full time in any of those [part-time] jobs,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, told the Associated Press. “Combined with a track record of DUIs, it would be enough to do further examination as to whether or not he would be a good fit.”
Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, called for Sheriff Campbell, a Republican, to resign, saying that Campbell had “failed” by hiring the officer in the first place. On Friday, the sheriff did so.
Minneapolis has had its own difficulties with officer histories — most prominently former officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged and later convicted of killing George Floyd in 2020. Previous incidents of misconduct were revealed in Chauvin’s record.
More recently, an officer was ”separated“ from the Minneapolis Police Department in 2023, just seven months after being hired. Tyler Timberlake had been accused of assaulting an unarmed Black man three years ago when he worked for a police department in Fairfax County, Va., and was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery, but a Virginia jury ultimately found him not guilty. Last year, Fairfax County settled a lawsuit with the victim for $150,000.
Now Timberlake is suing the city of Minneapolis for defamation, arguing that comments made by Police Chief Brian O’Hara are preventing him from finding work.
O’Hara said he could not comment specifically on the Timberlake case because it is in litigation. But in an interview with an editorial writer, he said that the MPD vetting process has been overhauled since he joined the department in 2022 and that the hiring manual has been updated with stronger investigation guidance for the first time in 15 years.
He said that applicants now are subject to more scrutiny and more comprehensive investigations, not only regarding convictions but also the type and number of accusations previously made about them. O’Hara also said the information about potential officers is now being reviewed by additional decisionmakers in the department.
The MPD sworn force has 200 fewer officers than is authorized and is now training and recruiting to hire more. It and other police departments — if they don’t already — should be using tools like the National Decertification Index as they make choices. NDI is a national registry of police officers whose law enforcement credentials have been revoked due to misconduct. And there is guidance both in the rules of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training on officer eligibility for a license and in the 2017 federal report “Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer.”
That study states that “recruitment and hiring play a major role in shaping how police agencies develop, grow, and ultimately succeed … there are few major issues confronting policing today that do not stem from recruitment and hiring on some level.”
.
Officer Justin Faison, who is assigned to the Mount Vernon
District, was arrested on DUI charges after a two-vehicle crash on Route 50
near South Manchester Street in Seven Corners.
Seven people who were in the other vehicle were taken to a
nearby hospital and treated for minor injuries.
The police department said that Faison was off-duty and was
driving his personal vehicle at the time of his arrest.
Faison, who has been a sworn officer with the department
since 2022, was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an
Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.
In case you forgot, former Fairfax County police chief at Rossler is a defendant in a lawsuit that alleges that he helped cover up a sex trafficking ring in which the cops got free sex from the victims, trafficked women, in exchange for not shutting the ring down
I’m asking for a friend….is Jane a woman or one of those people who
decided not to be a guy because it was a mistake at birth……not that there is
anything wrong with that.
Anyway, jane’s got itself a hysterical sense of humor, listen to this. At
the end of 2013, she was transferred to Internal Affairs as an investigator.
“It was a tough job but important. I realized that we make mistakes; but as an
agency, we have to police ourselves – and that’s critical.”
Fairfax County Police
College students! Don't miss our #FCPD Hiring Expo! Get hands-on with our hiring process, talk to detectives, and practice the Physical Abilities Test. Submit
Before
you throw your life away consider the other benefits.
You WILL get divorced
Shift work
You’ll be widely disliked by the community you work in
You will likely become an alcoholic after retirement
You will probably die from a heart attack a few years after you retire
Here's a thought ...hold your goddamn gossip session off the road.
Fairfax County, VA
– A Fairfax
County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Nicholas Vaszil, has been arrested for the
assault of an inmate at the Adult Detention Center in January.
A cop who fatally shot a McLean man in 2022 violated Fairfax County
Police Department policies. Fairfax County Independent Police Auditor Richard
Schott affirmed the finding. The cops, three of them, shot 26-year-old Jasper
Aaron Lynch at his home on July 7, 2022. The primary culprit is a cop named
Edward George — violated other policies by not turning on his body-worn camera
during the first of two calls to the house on Arbor Lane and not carrying his
taser during either response, according to Schott’s report. George had left his
taser “in the trunk of his patrol car”
Lynch’s sister and a family friend called the police twice that night
seeking assistance for Lynch, who was experiencing a mental health crisis.
During the second call, one officer deployed a taser twice after Lynch threw a
“wooden tribal mask” at him, according to the report.
Four seconds later, another officer tased Lynch when he began approaching
while carrying a wine bottle, which he then dropped. George fired four shots
with his handgun, followed by a fifth into Lynch’s neck after Lynch collided
with the second officer.
Lynch died at the scene. As described in Schott’s report, the encounter
unfolded within a minute of the officers entering the home at 8:52 p.m.
The camera footage indicated the young
man was on the ground and unarmed when George fired the final, fatal
shot.
George still has a job. The kid is still dead.
Anthony Santaniello Migrant charged with child sex crimes in Virginia, released twice before ICE arrest
by: Tannock Blair
WASHINGTON (WRIC) — A man charged with child sex crimes and
was released on bond twice by Fairfax County law enforcement has reportedly
been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Deportation officers reportedly arrested a 30-year-old
Honduran national at his residence in Bladensburg, Maryland, on Monday, April
15, and served him with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice
immigration judge.
“The Honduran national unlawfully entered the United States on
an unknown date, at an unknown location, without being inspected, admitted or
paroled by a U.S. immigration official,” a release from ICE reads.
According to authorities, the man had previously been arrested
by the Fairfax County Police Department on July 5, 2023, when he was charged
with felony carnal knowledge of a child 13-14 years of age.
ICE reportedly placed an immigration detainer against the
suspect with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on July 6, 2023.
An immigration detainer, according to authorities, is a
request from ICE to other law enforcement agencies “to notify ICE as early as
possible before a removable noncitizen is released from their custody.”
“The Fairfax County Adult Detention Center did not honor ERO
Washington, D.C.’s immigration detainer and released the noncitizen from
custody on a $10,000 bond on July 10, 2023,” the release from ICE reads.
The Honduran national was arrested again by Fairfax County
Police on Feb. 22, 2024, and he was charged with the following:
• Two additional
counts of felony carnal knowledge of a child 13-14 years of age: without force
• Two counts of
felony indecent liberties with a child less than 15 years of age
“Later that day, the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center
released him from custody before ERO Washington could file an immigration
detainer against him,” the release from ICE reads.
“The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has consistently told
Immigration and Customs Enforcement that an administrative detainer is not
sufficient to hold an inmate past their release date in the Fairfax County
Adult Detention Center,” a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office told 8News.
“The Sheriff’s Office has informed ICE that a judicial immigration
warrant is needed to effectuate a transfer to ICE custody. This ensures that
the FCSO only detains individuals with lawful authority. Despite ICE’s knowledge of this, they
declined to obtain a judicial warrant for this individual.”
The spokesperson said the inmate was released on bond on all
charges after both arrests.
“The individual in question was twice released on bond on all
charges by a Fairfax County judge,” the spokesperson said. “At the time the
inmate was ordered to be released, the Sheriff’s Office had no outstanding
judicial warrants on file. He was therefore released pursuant to the court
order as was required by law.”
8News reached out to the Fairfax County Police Department for
comment on Friday, April 26, but has not yet received a response.
Following the arrest on April 15 by deportation officers,
authorities reported the man will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of
his removal proceedings.
“This Honduran noncitizen stands accused of some very serious
crimes and represented a threat to the children of the Washington, D.C. area,”
said ERO Washington, D.C. Field Office Director Liana Castano. “When local
jurisdictions have policies in place which prohibit them from cooperating with
ICE ERO and from honoring our lawfully issued detainers and administrative
warrants, they put the suspects, law enforcement officers, and most
importantly, the members of our local communities at risk.”
Posted the wrong picture in the last posting.
That isn't professional Chinese American Wilson Lee, it was Tou Thao, the cop who stood by and watched as another cop murdered a suspect by cutting off his air.
Maj. Wilson Lee
Those zany and unpredictable corrupt
cops at the Fairfax County Police are at it again. They appointed, in my
opinion, a token Chinese American to a position of influence and then got upset
when the token Chinese American acted like a Chinese American…welcome to a day
in the life of the corrupt Fairfax County Police
A Virginia police chief sent an
email faulting the director of the Fairfax County's police academy for signing
graduation certificates in a language other than English and requested the
documents be signed again.
Maj. Wilson Lee, who is Chinese
American, and probably very lonely within that baston of angry white people, has
signed the ceremonial documents in Chinese with his legal given name, Lee
Wai-Shun, since taking over the Fairfax County Police Criminal Justice Academy
over a year ago.
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.
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.