Fairfax County Police Watch: Drunk cops

Suspended Midland Park cop trying to regain his job

BY EMILY MASTERS

MIDLAND PARK - A borough police officer who was suspended after he crashed an all-terrain vehicle on a Wyckoff street and was charged with driving while intoxicated is trying to be reinstated to his patrol duties.

Officer Joseph B. Gaeta pleaded guilty to driving an all-terrain vehicle down Godwin Avenue while intoxicated in 2011 and was suspended without pay.

Gaeta’s attorney, Joseph P. Rem, said his client is challenging the suspension on the grounds that it was too harsh.

“His position is that the offense did not warrant the drastic remedy,” said Rem.

A hearing last week began the appeal process, which is expected to continue for several weeks before a hearing officer makes a decision in August. At that point, the Midland Park Council can vote on the reinstatement. Gaeta or the Police Department can appeal the hearing officer’s recommendation.

Gaeta was arrested a few hours after he had participated in DWI enforcement training at the Bergen County Police Academy on Dec. 15, 2011. He drank alcohol at the training as part of an exercise that allowed other officers to perform sobriety tests on him. While off duty a few hours later, Gaeta drove his all-terrain vehicle down Godwin Avenue in Wyckoff. He overturned and crashed the ATV when he turned onto Greenhaven Road. His blood alcohol content was measured as 0.135 percent, Rem said. The state limit for driving is 0.08.

After the 2011 incident, the Wyckoff police investigated the case and issued summons, which included a DWI charge. Gaeta was fined $306 and court costs, his driver’s license was suspended and he was sentenced to participate in the Intoxicated Driver Resource Center’s driver safety program. On appeal he argued that because he was driving an ATV, the maximum sentence he could receive was a $200 fine under state law. He won the appeal and was resentenced to lesser charges and a $150 fine in July 2013.

“Until the officer had his full day in court on his DWI appeal, [Midland Park] agreed to hold any disciplinary charges in abeyance,” said Borough Attorney Raymond Wiss.

Gaeta was injured in the accident and was on paid medical leave from the police force for four-and-a-half months. During that time, Detective Sgt. John Gibbons, the department’s internal affairs officer, investigated the incident to see if Gaeta had violated department rules and regulations. Gibbons made a disciplinary recommendation to acting Chief John Casson that he suspend Gaeta without pay. In 2012, Casson retired and Michael Marra, as the new chief, upheld the disciplinary action, said Wiss.

“An officer is allowed to request a hearing to contest charges that are factually or legally erroneous or recommend that the discipline is too harsh,” Wiss said. Gaeta “focuses on the latter,” Wiss said.

The hearing officer, Matthew S. Mahoney, was selected because he has legal experience as a captain in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and as a special assistant U.S. attorney, said Wiss.

Mayor Patrick O’Hagan said that because Gaeta is the son of late Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaeta, the borough wanted “someone unbiased.”

At the closed-session hearing, Marra and Gibbons “testified for the disciplinary actions they took against Gaeta,” said Wiss. They were cross-examined by Rem, who did not call witnesses.

Marra said he had “no comment.” Gaeta did not respond to requests for comment and Rem declined to have his client comment.

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.