Secrecy around police shootings
has been a problem for at least a decade.
By Mary Kimm
The official position of the
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on the need for changes in policy after the
shooting of John Geer by police in Springfield in August of 2013 appears to be
that this is the first time police policies have been a problem:
“Policies for handling police-involved
incidents, which served us well for decades, were inadequate in this
complicated situation.”
Police-involved shootings have
resulted in excruciating obfuscation and delay by Fairfax County Police dating
back more than a decade. In this editorial, we refer to two high-profile cases,
but these are not the only cases where police secrecy had caused incalculable
pain to families while damaging the credibility of the police and other county
officials. And this issue is not limited to Fairfax County. Alexandria and
Arlington use similar approaches to limit public access to information.
Most Northern Virginia
residents think very highly of their police. We are very safe here. People
understand that sometimes mistakes happen, that sometimes force is needed, and
that sometimes police will exercise deadly force. What they are unlikely to
accept is secrecy that shrouds mistakes, and failure to take responsibility for
explaining events of deadly force.
We’ll quote the father of David
Masters who wrote a letter to the Mount Vernon Gazette (a Connection Newspaper)
in June, 2013, two months before John Geer was shot:
“I am the father of David Masters. David was
shot to death by a Fairfax County police officer on Nov. 13, 2009 while sitting
in his truck at a stop at the intersection of Route 1 and Fort Hunt Road. I
don’t know any more about the circumstances of this grim fatality now than I
did then and now, as then, the records of this tragedy are not available to
anyone outside the police department. The officer who shot my son was
ultimately and I must say secretly fired by the then police chief, David
Rohrer. But even that was done without any admission of culpability by anyone
in the county. … I don’t understand why the Virginia Freedom of Information Act
gives blanket exemption to police matters. ... As it is now, the police department
can, and seemingly does, operate in a culture of complete autonomy without fear
that its actions will be held up to any kind of scrutiny.”
The Connection reported in 2006
about the accidental shooting of an unarmed Salvatore J. "Sal" Culosi
Jr. during his arrest on gambling charges:
“With red-rimmed eyes and her voice cracking,
Anita Culosi expressed outrage Thursday evening [March 30, 2006] that a Fairfax
County police officer will not be charged with a crime for accidentally killing
her 37-year-old son. ‘My son is laying in a cemetery,’ she said, surrounded by
family members holding framed pictures of her son. “That man pulled a trigger
and shot my son dead.’"
Anita Culosi's son, Salvatore
J. "Sal" Culosi Jr., was accidentally shot to death by a Fairfax
County SWAT team officer on Jan. 24 outside his Fair Oaks townhouse. He had
been under investigation for illegal sports gambling for the previous three
months, accepting at least $28,000 in bets from an undercover Fairfax County
detective.
In July, 2012, more than a year
before John Geer was shot and killed, a group of citizens identified four
cases, including Masters and Culosi, where police secrecy continued to block
questions about shooting deaths. Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability
characterized “questionable circumstances” around the shootings, noted that no
one, including the families of the deceased victims, had been able to obtain a
police incident report despite the fact that the four cases are closed.
CCPA Executive Director
Nicholas Beltrante sent letters asking for the release of documents, “to find
out what happened in the shooting deaths, why deadly force was used instead of
a taser gun or beanbag gun, and to find out if police misconduct took place.”
Beltrante said: “Our letters
will highlight to the public the importance of amending the Virginia FOIA to
require the release of police incident reports, and the value of improving
police accountability by creating an independent police citizen oversight panel
made up of Fairfax county citizens …. Unnecessary use of deadly force by the
police, if it is occurring, will undermine the integrity and confidence of the
public in our police and our elected officials.”
The revelations about the
shooting of John Geer as a result of a civil lawsuit seriously undermine the
credibility of the investigation process.
Aside from the officer who shot
Geer, four other officers on the scene told investigators that same day that
they were shocked by the shot that killed Geer and thought the shooting was
unnecessary. (One officer described his first reaction: “WTF.”) There was no
weapon in view, although Geer was a gun owner and had a holstered gun nearby.
Geer made great effort to be predictable in his actions, asking permission to
scratch his nose, otherwise keeping his hands up on the doorframe.
But a day after the shooting,
police released the following update:
“The preliminary investigation indicates that
when officers arrived on the scene, they were met by an individual who
displayed what appeared to be a weapon in a threatening manner and was
subsequently shot.”
And last month, before the
statements of the other officers were released, the police released this update
with the name of the officer:
“Geer was reported as having multiple firearms
inside the home, displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the
police, and refused the officers’ requests that he remain outside and speak to
them. Officers, including a trained negotiator, attempted to peaceably resolve
the situation. They spoke with Geer for more than 30 minutes as he stood in the
doorway of his home. When Geer began lowering his hands at one point during the
negotiations, PFC Adam Torres fired a single shot that struck Geer.”
But investigators knew that the
negotiator had not seen Geer holding a weapon.
We don’t agree with this
statement by Bulova: “The Board of Supervisors has taken the steps needed to
ensure its policies allow for justice to be fairly and swiftly served.”
This is not an isolated case.
The Board of Supervisors must demand transparency from the police.
