At what point do you think we should have a police oversight board?

Hey Sharon:

At what point do you think we should have a police oversight board?  When the cops pull off another bank robbery? (One of them robbed a bank once, no kidding)  A mass murder? Wholesale looting? What’s the starting point to spark the Board of Supervisors into stopping police misconduct in Fairfax County?

There is no need to be scared, the federal government will protect you, and if it’s a matter of having to explain the 250 assigned union contributions under different spouses names to various campaigns to get around those annoying campaign laws (Yeah, we know about that, it’s an old trick) just say you didn’t know who they were when you took the money and give it back, pretend outraged when you do it, that helps.

Do something.

In the past 12 months…………………

October 24, 2011 Fairfax Cop arrested for drunk driving

November 14, 2011, two Fairfax cops accused of beating an unarmed man walking home from work.

September 2011, Fairfax cop charged with domestic assault

Feb 2012, several Fairfax County cops accused of beating up teenager in a McDonalds.

March 2012 Police Captain gets a five figure pay out due to interoffice pissing match

March 2012, a cop who “Resigned from the force for reasons that can not be released” two years ago, killed himself and teenage daughter with a pistol.

May 2012: Fairfax cop arrested for sexual assault.

And those only the incidents the cops HAD to explain to the public…

Here is an idea for Fairfax County

Spend $90,000 on cameras to rope in the cops and save the people of Fairfax County several million paid out in law suits caused by the punks within the police ranks....cameras cost is less than the Fairfax County Police Royal Entitlement Navy and AirForce...but unlike the Fairfax County Police Royal Entitlement Navy, the cameras actually do something.

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Albuquerque police are going to require officers to use cameras to record all encounters with the public.

The Albuquerque Journal reports (http://bit.ly/KO6kVn) that the department is slated to put the new requirement, an expansion of a current policy, into effect Sunday.

Presently, officers are required to use small, digital lapel-mounted cameras to record searches and disorderly conduct arrests. But under the new requirement, the small cameras will be on every time an officer interacts with a member of the public.

Police Chief Ray Schultz said the change was recommended by the Police Oversight Commission. He said the department has purchased about 200 of the newer pen cameras for about $60 apiece.

"Hopefully, this will help to resolve some of the issues that have been ongoing," Schultz said, referring to officers' versions of events, particularly in use of force cases, being called into question by community groups.

The new cameras also come as the department faces heat from civil rights groups for 24 officer-involved shootings — 17 fatal — since 2010. They have been pressing for a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the shootings, but federal officials have not said if they would probe the department.

Meanwhile, the Albuquerque Police Department has instituted a number of reforms, including raising the requirements for incoming officers and having an independent

review panel look into all officer-involved shootings.

By last summer, each of the more than 650 uniformed officers had been issued a lapel camera, Schultz said. The department has bought more than 1,200 of the easily breakable cameras for about $100 each since the department began ordering them in 2010.

Schultz said the new pen cameras will help with investigations. "We continue to see good results where the officers are exonerated after having false complaints made against them," he said.

Schultz said the policy change is likely to create a "logistical nightmare" for APD administrative staff. The department's officers respond to more than 1,500 calls for service per day on average.

"The technology still continues to emerge, and it is not yet perfect," he said. "We're trying to work through the bugs, and the biggest problem for us is going to be how to copy and retain the video from the cameras."

Officers can be reprimanded for not turning on their recorders, Schultz said. An officer could be fired if he or she repeatedly fails to record encounters.

Lapel cameras hold about six hours of video. The pen cameras hold less than two hours.

Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr.strikes again

August 21, 1989Fairfax County found no evidence implicating Randall Lee Breer in the death of Rhiannon "Rosie" Gordon in a search of his Dale City residence over the weekend, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said in a telephone interview last night. Undercover investigators arrested Breer, a 28-year-old Dale City construction worker, Thursday afternoon at a used car lot in Woodbridge."There's not sufficient evidence to charge him," Mr. Horan reiterated last evening. "I basically happen to be a believer that if you have proof, you charge them. If you don't, you don't. In my business you realize you need evidence."  

Trivial Pursuits and Predatory Policing

August 15, 2004 Sunday

Trivial Pursuits and Predatory Policing

 Falls Church Police Chief Robert T. Murray imposes a quota on his officers: They must write an average of three tickets or make three arrests per 12-hour shift. The most obvious way to fulfill the requirement is to focus on trivial infractions. "Traffic is a big issue" in his community, says Murray, because serious crime is not. That may surprise the two men who were assaulted and robbed recently on Monticello Drive. One victim, who was riding his bicycle to his Falls Church home, happened upon six suspected gang members as they brutally assaulted another Falls Church man. After robbing the first victim, these hoodlums assailed the cyclist and stole his bike. Fairfax County police logged that incident about 2 a.m. July 30. About the same time, according to other police reports, criminals were robbing an Arlington business and stealing a car from Kirkwood Street; breaking into a warehouse and a school in Alexandria; and stealing another car. Later that day, an Arlington man was robbed at gunpoint by thieves who shot him -- out of annoyance because he was carrying so little money -- and then stole his car. And what were Fairfax County police doing that day? At least some were conducting a sobriety checkpoint in McLean. This checkpoint produced predictably paltry results -- of the 591 cars that passed through the blockade between 11 p.m. and 2:15 a.m., police found only three drivers to cite for driving under the influence. Why, with vicious thugs on the loose, do police waste time on trivial pursuits and ineffective tactics? It isn't as though serious crime is hard to find in Northern Virginia. In a single week earlier this month, Fairfax County police logged 159 cases of larceny and 21 auto thefts. Open-air drug markets -- well known to police -- operate with impunity. Yet citizens who dislike seeing their taxes wasted have no one but themselves to blame. We have created a climate that hinders -- even hamstrings -- effective policing. For instance, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, provides stunningly specific data about the distribution of illegal drugs in Northern Virginia. "West African and Middle Eastern criminal groups are the primary transporters of Southwest Asian heroin into Virginia," the NDIC reports. "Mexican brown powdered heroin and Mexican black tar heroin available in Virginia typically are transported into the state from southwestern states and North Carolina by Mexican criminal groups. "Dominican and African American criminal groups are the dominant wholesale and mid-level distributors of South American heroin in Virginia." The average cop on the beat in Virginia almost certainly is aware of these patterns, but an officer who targets the likely suspects risks being excoriated for "profiling." Is it any wonder cops turn to menial matters when they are criticized for intelligent policing? Citizens also bear the blame for tolerating tactics that use law enforcement to produce revenue. For example, sobriety checkpoints not only yield negligible results, they may even be counterproductive. How many more tragedies could be prevented by patrolling for impaired drivers? Nonetheless, Virginia police set up roadblocks weekly because that allows them to collect millions of dollars in grant money from the federal government -- and profits from a windfall of tickets. Consider that Fairfax's 316 checkpoints last year yielded only 770 arrests for DUI, but 7,209 citations for other infractions -- e.g., incorrectly installed child seats, expired property stickers, non-use of safety belts, etc. Corralling citizens to sift for a few miscreants is precisely what the Fourth Amendment prohibits, but officials promote it and citizens acquiesce because dragnets are so lucrative. Most police officers are courageous people whose talents are wasted in setting trivial traps. And, surely, most Virginians would prefer being protected to being harassed. But effective law enforcement needs a political climate in which facts can prevail over political correctness -- and where local officials are willing to eschew the revenue produced by predatory policing. Criminals in Northern Virginia, sleep soundly.    

August 11, 1994,4 Female Workers Sue Fairfax Police;

3 Officers, Civilian Accuse Lieutenant of Repeated Sexual Harassment Three female police officers and a civilian employee sued the Fairfax County Police Department yesterday for $ 1 million, claiming a male supervisor sexually harassed them at times during the last 12 years. The women alleged that Lt. Larry Jackson repeatedly made unwanted suggestive remarks and overtures. Two of them said he retaliated after they complained about his behavior to his superiors by filing petty or phony disciplinary charges against them."This has been a recurring pattern," said Carla Markim Siegel, an attorney for the women. "These women didn't know each other. They complained independently, and the department didn't take adequate measures to prevent it from happening again... . It creates a hostile work environment." The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, rekindles a controversy surrounding the treatment of women in the 1,036-member department. Two years ago, 10 female officers complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about a "locker room attitude" in the department and said they had been denied promotions and key assignments because of their sex.Although the county drafted a policy against sexual harassment last year, the suit contends that women continue to be subjected to abuse. Police Chief Michael W. Young and Jackson also were named as defendants.Maj. Richard Rappoport, a police spokesman, said the department has acted swiftly in cases involving workplace harassment. All supervisors underwent training last year in ways to detect and address sexual harassment, he said. He declined comment on the allegations against Jackson, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.Jackson referred questions to his attorney when reached at his office in the department's West Springfield station. The lawyer, Kristin R. Blair, said the allegations are false and stem from a "racially hostile" work environment that "encourages unfounded claims and promotes exaggerations against minorities."Jackson filed an EEOC complaint alleging racial discrimination seven months ago, and that case is pending, Blair said. "I feel that Larry is just being made out as some fiend and he's really a straight arrow," she said.The suit was filed by Officers Susan Long, Cynthia McAlister and Elizabeth Dohm and Andrea Moss, a civilian communication aide, all of whom worked under Jackson's supervision at various times during his 17-year police career.Their lawyer, Siegel, said race had nothing to do with the lawsuit.Among other things, Long said Jackson once ordered her back to the office while she was on the way to a burglary call to ask her out to lunch. He also suggested she use her "sex appeal" to get him new uniforms, the suit said.McAlister said that Jackson made advances while the two took a private airplane ride in 1982 and that her colleagues later ridiculed her about the incident. Moss said Jackson made up a list of phony disciplinary charges against her last year after he learned she complained about him to the department's internal affairs unit. On another occasion, she said she found computer records that falsely showed Jackson had disciplined her.Dohm also said she was disciplined by Jackson after talking about him to internal affairs investigators three years ago.   

Fairfax County's first black cop sued the police

August 7, 1989

 Christopher Stokes, 48, a youth counselor and Realtor who in 1967 became Fairfax County's first black police officer, died Aug. 4 at Fair Oaks Hospital. He had sickle cell anemia. He left the Fairfax police in 1973. Since 1974, he had been a youth counselor with the Fairfax County courts and a part-time Realtor with Mount Vernon Realty in Fairfax. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he had testified for federal attorneys against Fairfax County. It was charged that the county discriminated against blacks and women in its hiring and promotion policies. In 1982, the Justice Department accepted a settlement offer by Fairfax County that involved the distribution of $ 2.75 million to 685 discrimination victims. Mr. Stokes was among those who received awards.  

Labor union? When was the lst time you saw one of these weasels outside a cop car? You have to labor to have a union

August 4, 1990 Fairfax Cops form labor union

Overpaid and unhappy Fairfax cops formed a union called Fairfax COPS Local 5000 as an alternative to the Fairfax County Police Association, because they don’t like working shifts. In retrospect, the Chupaz Union would have been a more befitting name