Probe of fatal police shooting
goes to federal authorities
By Justin Jouvenal
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.
