Fairfax County Police Watch: Suspect shot during her arrest

The Washington Post

January 25, 1979, Thursday, Final Edition

The Washington Times

July 7, 1998, Tuesday, Final Edition

Suspect shot during her arrest

BYLINE: Stephen Dinan; THE WASHINGTON TIMES

SECTION: Part C; METROPOLITAN TIMES; VIRGINIA NEWS; Pg. C7

LENGTH: 323 words

A Fairfax County police officer's gun went off during a scuffle yesterday morning, wounding a woman who had just led police on a long chase along U.S. Route 1 through Prince William and Fairfax counties. After the chase finally ended in a Mount Vernon shopping center, Diana Elizabeth Tyler, 38, of Stafford County, refused to get out of her car. While Fairfax officers pulled her from the car, one officer's gun went off, police said.

The bullet struck her in the neck, police said. Police wouldn't give the name of the officer whose gun discharged and would only say that he was holding the gun in his hand at the time. The department's internal affairs division is investigating.Prince William County police spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Chinn said Miss Tyler led police on a 27-minute chase through the county there, changing direction on Route 1 several times, before heading into Fairfax County.After a 10-mile chase along Route 1 north through Fairfax, Miss Tyler pulled into the parking lot for Engleside Plaza. Police blocked her 1995 Oldsmobile Achieva in before she could leave.They ran to the vehicle, telling her to get out. She refused and the officers struggled to pull her out, which is when the officer's weapon fired.Miss Tyler's neck injury was treated at Inova Fairfax Hospital and she was released. There were no injuries or damage to cars during the chase.Miss Tyler was charged with driving on a suspended license and attempting to elude police. She is being held without bond in Fairfax County.Police took the opportunity to serve her with a number of outstanding warrants, including one in Fairfax for a felony bad-check incident; a failure-to-appear warrant from a bad-check charge in Stafford County; and a failure-to-appear warrant for a larceny charge in Fredericksburg. Prince William police charged her with driving on a suspended license and attempting to elude police.

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.