Fairfax County Police Watch: This is what is going to happen in the John Geer shooting: Nothing. The Board of supervisors will pay of the law suit by the family, the cops will walk away unharmed and Sharon Bulova will get relected.

The John Geer case: new details from the police file raise new questions

By Tom Jackman February 2

Officer Adam D. Torres, center, takes aim at John B. Geer as Officer Rodney M. Barnes, right, arrives at Geer’s Springfield townhouse about five minutes after the confrontation began on Aug. 29, 2013. Barnes was delivering a shield to Torres as he arrived, records show, then took up a position to the left of Torres and spoke to Geer for about 35 minutes before Torres shot Geer. Torres said Geer suddenly dropped his hands to his waist. Barnes said he did not. The photo was taken from a nearby townhouse by Maura Harrington, Geer’s longtime partner, who had called the police because of a domestic dispute. (Maura Harrington)

The release of 11,000 documents from the Fairfax County police investigation into the fatal shooting of John Geer was a pivotal, and fairly unique, moment in the case. Much of the evidence in the case is now public before any decision has been made about charging him which is uncommon in such cases. We now know that four police officers and two civilian witnesses — Geer’s father and his best friend, watching from a distance — all say that Geer had his hands up around his head when Officer Adam D. Torres fired one shot into his chest on Aug. 29, 2013.

But many questions remain, and some partial answers emerged in the Friday night document dump. Next up in the case is a motions hearing this Friday on the Geer family’s request for the internal affairs files on this shooting. But there are plenty more loose ends to be followed:

Just how much of a threat was John Geer?

This has to be looked at from the police perspective. They were initially told that Geer was throwing the belongings of his longtime partner, Maura Harrington, onto their lawn and that he had two guns locked in a safe. Geer then showed the first two officers a holstered gun, but placed it on the landing to his left.

Combined with information they received that Geer had told Harrington about Geer perhaps wanting to commit “suicide by cop”, this brought a raft of other officers from the West Springfield police station, who took up positions around the townhouse, followed by K-9 units in the back, the helicopter and SWAT team on standby, the records show. [Torres, however, apparently did not hear this information because he did not mention it to investigators in explaining why he shot Geer.]

Fairfax officers involved in John Geer shooting explain what they saw(2:01)

The Fairfax County released audio interviews of the two officers involved in the shooting death of John Geer as they explain what happened. (Fairfax County Police Department)

But Officer Rodney M. Barnes, a trained negotiator, showed up within five minutes and immediately calmed Geer down, he and other officers said. Even Torres said Geer spoke calmly throughout, his statement shows. So why the huge police response? What crime has been committed? The participants in the domestic dispute have been separated. Geer’s gun is down, records show. Police officers I’ve spoken to have questioned why the police didn’t just back off, while ensuring the safety of Harrington and their two daughters. Instead, more and more police officers arrived at Geer’s home. Four stood nearby with guns drawn, though only Torres had his finger on the trigger. Barnes arrived five minutes after Torres and said Geer “never said anything while I was there about, ‘if we came in there he would shoot.’” He was asked if Geer made any threats. “Not while I was there,” Barnes said.

Instead, he verbally jousted with Barnes about knowing his rights, wanting the police off his property, and seeming “arrogant” to one of the other officers. He also said he didn’t want to get shot, and was careful to keep his hands up. The photo below shows the gun was very close to where he stood.

One retired officer I spoke with said on the many domestic calls he handled over the years, if the parties were calm and separated, and no assault or other crime had occurred, he would notify dispatchers about the status of the case and “clear out of there. No one can articulate a crime in this case.” And so no need for an extended stay, much less backup from half the patrol squad.

The holstered handgun initially wielded by John Geer, and then almost immediately set down, is seen on the landing next to the front door of his townhouse in Springfield on Aug. 29, 2013, next to some cheerleading pompoms. (Fairfax County Police Department)

Why did the police wait 70 minutes to render aid to Geer?

All four of the officers near Geer, including Torres, reported seeing a black or red mark on his lower chest as soon as he was hit. Geer screamed, then spun, closed the door, and collapsed, the officers said. But no aid was rendered to Geer for 70 minutes. A SWAT team and paramedics were summoned, but the records show they were not allowed to enter right away.

The police have noted previously that Geer had at least one gun nearby, which was later found on the landing near the front door, and seven long guns in a safe. They did not know the extent of Geer’s injury and whether he was rearming himself for a shootout. The four nearby officers immediately scurried for cover. Torres and Barnes moved to the townhouse next door.

The Taurus handgun that John B. Geer showed Fairfax County police officers, then placed on the landing to the immediate left of the front door. (Fairfax County Police Department)

Four minutes after the shot, Barnes radioed, “I hear moving in the house and some screaming. Is there any way we can try to get a phone call back into the house on his cell or something?” Four minutes after that, Barnes again radioed, “And we do hear more movement in the house.”

Torres told investigators he was standing with Barnes and “I was just hoping that he was ok. My concern was he was going to bleed out to death. I didn’t want the guy to die. I wanted to get him some sort of medical attention.” But Torres acknowledged that he and Barnes couldn’t go in “because if we opened that door, who knows what he was waiting for, we heard movement inside the house but we don’t know what he was doing.”

The police SWAT team had been monitoring the situation, the records show, and immediately mobilized and headed to Geer’s house on Pebble Creek Brook Court, with both a remote controlled robot and an armored hostage rescue vehicle to assist in the entry. But the documents show they waited while police commanders debated whether they should go into Geer’s house.

“A question,” a SWAT commander’s after-action report states, “as to the legality of a [SWAT] entry into the residence to provide medical assistance to the subject delayed the implementation of [SWAT's] plan of action.”

The police first used the robot to peek into the townhouse windows, then used the armored vehicle to knock down the door. SWAT officers entered and found Geer dead on the floor. The Geer family lawyers said it is not clear whether immediate medical aid would have saved him, though Harrington and Jeff Stewart, Geer’s best friend and a witness to the shooting, both pleaded with police at the time to go in immediately.

Why did prosecutors actively seek Torres’s internal affairs files so aggressively?

Ray Morrogh knew of Torres’s angry run-in five months earlier with one of his assistant prosecutors, and so did every top Fairfax police commander. Is this the “conflict of interest” Morrogh was referring to when he disclosed in February 2014 that he had transferred the case to federal prosecutors? Did it necessitate him referring the case to the Justice Department, which has now had the case for more than a year without making a decision? Now that the Torres courthouse incident from March 2013 is known, legal observers I’ve spoken with are wondering if it was enough to stall the case. It indicates a willingness by Morrogh to investigate Torres fully, but his decision to hand the criminal case to the feds sent it into its current state of deep limbo. That, in turn, placed both Chief Edwin Roessler and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors in the unusual position of having to wait indefinitely to comment on the case, rather than simply wait a few months for a charging decision from Morrogh, which had been previous standard procedure.

A photo taken minutes before he was shot shows John B. Geer standing with his hands on the top of the storm door of his Springfield townhouse on Aug. 29, 2013. On the left is Officer Rodney M. Barnes, who said he was speaking calmly with Geer, and Officer Adam D. Torres can be seen standing next to a tree in Geer’s front yard. Torres then shot and killed Geer, claiming he moved his hands down to his waist. Barnes said he did not. (Courtesy DiMuro Ginsberg)

Within two weeks of the shooting, Morrogh directed homicide detectives John Farrell and Chris Flanagan to interview his assistant prosecutor, Chuck Peters, about his experience with Torres, Farrell’s report shows. Peters said Torres cursed him loudly and repeatedly, leading five top Fairfax police commanders to call and apologize to Peters. Then in November 2013, an internal email shows that the detectives’ supervisor, Lt. Bryan Holland, asked Maj. Ted Arnn, the head of police internal affairs: “Have you had a chance to speak with Ray Morrogh. I understand you two may have discussed information which could be pertinent to our investigation, concerning possible ‘anger issues.’” Arnn responds, “There are issues we will have to work out next week. No meeting yet.”

There was a meeting several days later, Morrogh revealed in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley last month, with Roessler, an internal affairs captain and three Fairfax County attorneys. The county refused to provide Morrogh the internal files. “I addressed each of their concerns,” Morrogh wrote, “none of which, in my legal opinion, warranted the withholding of the requested materials.” He said Virginia rules prohibit subpoenaing the materials from the police. He said a special prosecutor would have run into the same roadblock. Another request met with another “no” in January 2014, and the next day he sent the case to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria.

“At that point I was convinced,” Morrogh wrote, “that the public could not have complete confidence in an investigation where one arm of the police department was cooperating with the prosecutor while the Chief and Internal Affairs Section along with the Office of the County Attorney were seeking to withhold information…The decision made by the Chief of Police and his advisors to withhold the requested materials effectively prevented me from completing the investigation and rendering my decision.”

Was Morrogh seeking only the run-in with the prosecutor case, or all other complaints against Torres? Statements given mandatorily, as a condition of being an officer, cannot be used against that officer in a criminal case. But did the prosecutor want material besides Torres’s statements? And if he obtained such material, would it be admissible in a trial on the shooting, or simply provide insight into Torres’s state of mind? Lawyers tell me such information likely would not be admissible at trial. Morrogh is not commenting while the case is pending.

And what happened with the federal investigation?

FBI agents did not meet with Farrell, the lead police investigator, until April 2, 2014, nearly three months after Morrogh referred the case to the feds. The following week, Farrell met with the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, Steven Campbell, and then later in April Farrell scheduled interviews for Campbell with officers Barnes, David Neil, Benjamin Kushner and David Parker, the four officers most directly involved in the incident. Then in mid-June, Farrell met with federal investigators twice to provide Torres’s training file and other unspecified documents, the police files show.

And that is the last we’ve heard from the feds. In November, we reported that the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria had completed their investigation and sent the results to the Justice Department’s civil rights division. That division has previously taken a long time to rule on high-profile police shooting cases such as the Trayvon Martin case and the Michael Brown case, both still under consideration.

Why didn’t Morrogh call for a grand jury, or simply file charges himself?

The newly released records reveal that, while Torres claimed that Geer dropped his hands suddenly to his waist, four officers corroborated the claims of Geer’s father and best friend — that Geer did not drop his hands and he was “not doing one of those quick grabs, furtive movements or anything,” as Officer David Parker said in his statement that night. If Morrogh wanted to empanel a special grand jury, as Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert did in the Prince Rams case in 2013, he could have done so and allowed an impartial body to hear the evidence, lawyers I’ve spoken to have said. Did he need the internal affairs information to file charges? Morrogh has declined to discuss the case while it is pending.

But one very experienced lawyer analyzed it like this:

“I don’t understand the timidity in prosecuting this case,” he said. “Basically it will come down to the credibility of the the officers that did not shoot against the one that did and has every motive to avoid responsibility. They [other officers] conversely have no motive to lie and were in a good position to observe what occurred. So the jury is in the classic quandary that in order to acquit the officer they have to believe several other officers all misperceived reality or had a motive to lie. There is no clear way to harmonize both versions. At the same time, the theory of an already agitated officer, not fully conversant with the scene who likely acted on little or no movement from Geer and then retrospectively wants to believe he saw more than he did to come to terms with what he did do, is a plausible explanation that could yield a conviction.”

Why didn’t Torres or another officer use less-lethal force?

Torres was asked why he didn’t use his Taser and he correctly noted that Geer was standing behind a screen door, which would have blocked the Taser’s two electrical cords. In his interview with detectives, Torres also cracked, “You don’t take a Taser to a possible gun fight.” The use of shotgun-launched bean bags may also have been deterred by Geer’s screen door.

Geer report: Officers' conflicting accounts

FAIRFAX, Va. (WUSA9) -- Fairfax County Police have released thousands of pages of materials regarding the John Geer case online.

John Geer, age 46, was unarmed when he was shot and killed in the doorway of his Springfield home.

PFC Adam Torres, an eight-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, fatally shot Geer on August 29th, 2013, according to police. Police had been responding to a report of a domestic dispute.

Geer's family had been searching for information on his case for over a year. The attorney for the Geer family, Michael Leiberman said that by withholding information the Fairfax County Police Department created a "world of secrecy."

The killing of John Geer now looks unmistakably like a police coverup

By Editorial Board February 2

IN BROAD daylight and at close range, three Fairfax County police officers saw a fourth officer, Adam Torres, shoot John Geer once in the chest in August 2013. Two other witnesses, Mr. Geer’s father and a friend, also saw it. All five of those witnesses agreed that Mr. Geer, who had a holstered handgun at his feet, had his hands up at the moment Officer Torres pulled the trigger.

Mr. Geer, a 46-year-old father of two, committed no known crime that day. He had been speaking calmly with the officers for almost three-quarters of an hour when the lethal shot was fired. He then bled to death just inside the doorway of his home.

That was more than 17 months ago, and still there has been no accounting for Mr. Geer’s death. No charges. No indictment. No prosecution. And no information until last week, when the police, complying with a judge’s order, finally released thousands of documents.

Those documents provide a stark picture: Only Officer Torres contended that Mr. Geer made a sudden movement as if going for a gun.

Everyone involved in this case has dropped the ball and dodged responsibility, enabling what now looks like a coverup in a case of police impunity.

The police, who did not seek medical treatment for Mr. Geer or retrieve his body for more than an hour, falsely claimed Mr. Geer had “barricaded” himself inside his house after he was shot, then stonewalled prosecutors and the public for months.

The top prosecutor in Fairfax, Ray Morrogh, punted the case to the feds over a supposed conflict of interest involving a courthouse shouting match between Officer Torres and a rank-and-file prosecutor. That seems a far-fetched reason not to pursue the case.

The feds — first the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, then the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — sat on the case for months more, saying nothing.

Fairfax’s County’s governing body, the Board of Supervisors, seems incapable of getting its own employees — namely the police and the County Attorney’s office — to conduct themselves responsibly and transparently. The supervisors have managed nothing beyond tut-tutting that things don’t look quite right and calling for a review of policies.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Fairfax, one of the largest police departments in the nation, does not regard police-involved shootings as an “actual offense” and therefore does not report them to the FBI — part of a pattern among law enforcement agencies that results in no reliable statistics on the number of people police kill.

That mind-set seems to have infected virtually every agency in Fairfax, in addition to the feds, that should have stepped up to see that justice was done in the Geer case. The case should be presented to a jury, which can weigh Officer Torres’s account against those of other witnesses. The delay and obfuscation represent a travesty of justice.

Long delays in John Geer shooting probe leave Fairfax County board seeking changes

By Antonio Olivo February 2

Fairfax County officials say they are troubled by a lengthy delay in releasing information to the public about the fatal shooting of an unarmed Springfield man by a county police officer, and they are taking steps that they hope will help restore their constituents’ trust.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) said she plans to meet with Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) on Thursday to discuss how the county could better handle information related to police shootings. The county also wants to hire a consultant to recommend policy changes, officials said.

The county posted more than 11,000 pages of details on its Web site Friday evening about the Aug. 29, 2013 shooting of John B. Geer, who according to four police officers and other witnesses at the scene had his hands up near his head when Officer Adam D. Torres fired one shot into his chest during a standoff at Geer’s home.

(Read: Unanswered questions about the Geer shooting.)

The information had been kept secret for 17 months, after the office of Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh (D) decided it couldn’t effectively investigate the shooting and put the case in the hands of the U.S. Justice Department.

Federal prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will pursue criminal charges in the case, and they have repeatedly declined to answer questions about it from reporters.

At a time when police shootings have sparked unrest in other parts of the country, the timetable has raised concerns among some officials and residents in an area of Northern Virginia where police-community relations are normally strong.

“This kind of situation is unprecedented in Fairfax County,” said Bulova, who along with her colleagues has received angry ¬e-mails and phone calls from constituents about the case. “We had not had a situation that has taken this amount of time, and it’s been frustrating.”

After Geer was killed, the Board of Supervisors debated behind closed doors over how to handle information related to the incident, which began with a 911 call about a domestic dispute. Most supervisors agreed that releasing any details could jeopardize a pending criminal investigation. But some pushed for immediate disclosure, arguing that the public has a right to know the available facts about a police shooting right away, even if there are discrepancies in the details.

“Transparency and trust go hand-in-hand,” said Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield), whose district includes the neighborhood where Geer lived and died. “If you can’t share with your citizens what you know, how are they going to trust you?”

Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows ruled in December that county officials had to turn over the details of the police investigation to Geer’s family, as part of the pretrial discovery in a civil lawsuit that the family had filed. The documents revealed significant doubts about the shooting expressed by other police officers who were there.

Geer’s family asked that the documents not be publicly released until some potentially embarrassing information not related to the case could be redacted, Bulova said.

The Board of Supervisors agreed to wait until Tuesday, Bulova said, before deciding how much to release. But, she added, the plan was scuttled when The Washington Post informed the county Friday that the newspaper was preparing to publish an article over the weekend that included most of the details.

The decision to post the documents online Friday night left local media outlets scrambling to digest the information and prompted some accusations from the public that county officials were attempting to avoid public scrutiny.

Several county supervisors expressed frustration with how the process has unfolded, saying they never expected to wait this many months to share information publicly.

Now, the road to restoring public confidence will be a long one, Herrity said. “We’re trying to make up for a lot of lost time and a lot of lost trust,” he said.

Some details of the case are still unknown, including the contents of a police internal affairs report about Torres, who allegedly had an argument with a county prosecutor weeks before the Geer shooting that may have played a role in the decision to transfer the case to the Justice Department.

“I’m as frustrated as can be with the Department of Justice and frustrated as can be with the people who have been pointing a finger at us,” said Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully). “Yeah, it’s been in¬cred¬ibly frustrating, and then people continue to come back and keep banging on us.”

Audio: Two Fairfax officers involved in John Geer shooting explain what they saw

By Tom Jackman February 2

In addition to 11,000 documents, Fairfax County on Friday night released 54 audio files of the recorded statements of the officers and other witnesses in the fatal police shooting of John Geer in August 2013. Below are three statements by Officer Adam D. Torres explaining why he shot Geer, and three statements from Officer Rodney M. Barnes giving a different version of what he saw.

Family of John Geer Glad More Details Unraveling in Fatal Shooting

By Julie Carey

Northern Virginia bureau chief Julie Carey talks with the father of John Geer, who was shot by police during a standoff in August 2013, and to Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. (Published Monday, Feb 2, 2015)

Updated at 3:32 PM EST on Friday, Feb 6, 2015

The family of a Fairfax County man shot and killed during a police standoff said they now have a better idea of why one officer fired while others did not.

Last Friday night, the county released more than 11,000 pages of documents that are part of the investigation into the Aug. 29, 2013 death of John Geer. Early last month, county officials named Adam Torres as the officer who fired the fatal shot.

Many of the police interviews just released confirm what Geer's father and other witnesses to the shooting have always believed.

"It made me feel good that several of the officers say the same thing as I did," said Don Geer, the slain man's father. "Officer Torres saw something other than what we saw. I just can't feel he was justified in pulling the trigger."

Don Geer has always maintained his son's hands were held up as he stood inside the screen door of his Springfield-area townhouse during the standoff and that he was unarmed. Torres told investigators he fired when he saw Geer's hands go toward his waist and thought he might be reaching for a weapon.

Four other officers saw it much differently.

Officer Rodney Barnes told investigators, "When the shot happened, his hands were up. I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I didn’t see what he saw."

Michael Lieberman, the attorney who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family, said the documents demonstrate Torres should not have fired his weapon.

"You have six eyewitnesses on one side and the shooter on the other side saying something else tells me... that John Geer was shot wrongfully, unjustifiably," said Lieberman.

Lieberman said other new details in the documents make him wonder if Torres was upset and distracted when he arrived at the standoff. In his interview, Torres reported he had been fighting with his wife before the incident.

"So was his ability to perceive affected by the fact that he was just in a fight with his wife for an hour coming to the scene?" asked Lieberman. "I don't know. These are things we are going to explore through discovery in his case."

Lieberman said he and the family were also surprised to learn details about a prior police internal affairs investigation involving Torres. Five months before the shooting, Torres lost his temper at the courthouse, angered by a prosecutor's decision to drop charges in a DUI arrest he'd made.

"He started cursing out the commonwealth's attorney, the court system, his job. It is really remarkable and raises anger management issues with the officer," said Lieberman.

He will be in a Fairfax County courtroom Friday to ask a judge to require the county to turn over that police internal affairs report and whatever internal affairs probe has taken place in the wake of the shooting. It was the judge's order in the wrongful death suit that compelled Fairfax County to turn documents over the Geer family on Jan. 21.

The county's elected leaders and police department have come under fire for waiting so long to provide key details about the shooting. Board Chairman Sharon Bulova said once the documents were turned over to the Geer family, the Board planned to release them to the public a week later, on Jan. 28. But the Geer family then asked that some sensitive material be withheld from the public release.

Bulova said the Board planned to discuss that request at its Feb. 3 meeting. But Friday, Bulova learned the documents had been provided to a Washington Post reporter. The decision was made to move ahead with the public document release.

"It would have been done earlier than the release that happened on Friday but we were... asked by the family to reconsider some of the information included in the package for us to release."

Bulova said she regrets the information wasn't provided to the Geer family sooner.

"A tragic thing happened and my sympathies and heartfelt sympathy goes to Geer family," said Bulova. "I feel like we could have done a much better job sharing information with the family but also to be more clear with the public about the basics of what happened."

Bulova plans to meet with Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring on Thursday to get his ideas about who might be able to conduct independent review of the county's practices on dealing with police shootings.

Even though 17 months have passed, there's been no determination about whether the shooting was justified or whether Torres should be charged.

The case is in the hands of U.S. Department of Justice Civil Right division. The Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney would normally handle such a review and decide whether criminal charges are merited. But in late 2013, Fairfax County Police refused to turn over some information Morrogh was seeking.

He then referred the case to federal authorities. Chairman Bulova hopes getting the case details out in the public might spur the Justice Dept. to finish its work.

"Hopefully this has served to maybe encourage the Department of Justice to resolve this at their level as to whether the officer should be charged or whether or not action should be taken," Bulova said.

Documents are sought on Fairfax officer who fatally shot man

The attorneys for the family of John Geer, who was killed by a Fairfax County police officer in August 2013, are seeking all of the internal-affairs files of the officer, Adam D. Torres, according to motions unsealed in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

The court filings set the stage for the first public discussion of, and ruling on, the issue that apparently stymied the Fairfax prosecutor in early 2014 as he considered whether to charge the officer. The county prosecutor transferred the case to the Justice Department, where it remains more than a year later.

While the criminal investigation has languished, the family has sued Fairfax police and Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. for wrongful death. In December, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows ordered Fairfax to turn over much of its criminal investigative file to the Geer family attorneys, shedding more light both on Torres’s background and on the attempts by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh to dig into that background by seeking Torres’s internal affairs files.

The documents released by the county Friday show that Torres claimed that Geer quickly jerked his hands down to his waist and might have been reaching for a gun, causing Torres to fire one time. Torres told investigators the shooting was not an accident and he was not sorry for shooting Geer, his statements show. Four other officers, plus Geer’s father and best friend, said they were watching Geer and that his hands were at about face level when he was shot, their statements show.

The documents released by Fairfax also revealed that Torres had a loud outburst in the Fairfax County courthouse in March 2013 in which he repeatedly cursed at an assistant county prosecutor, leading to an internal-affairs investigation. In the motions unsealed Tuesday, assistant county attorney Kimberly Baucom revealed that Torres had three other internal-affairs complaints during his seven years on the force prior to the shooting: two auto accidents in his police cruiser “in which Torres was not at fault,” Baucom said, “and one related to a suspect’s lost property.”

Baucom added, “None of those investigations address anger or personality issues of Torres, nor do they include dishonesty, lying or credibility issues pertaining to Torres.” She said the county had agreed to provide the factual information from the internal file on the Torres courthouse incident to Michael Lieberman, the attorney for the Geer family in the civil suit, but not its materials relating to internal deliberations on Torres or conclusions and actions taken by the police against Torres in the courthouse incident.

“The disclosure of the FCPD’s internal deliberative process,” Baucom argued, “will negatively impact future investigations and future deliberative processes.”

Lieberman said he should be allowed to see the documents the police considered in making a decision on Torres after the courthouse incident. “Quite simply,” Lieberman wrote, “allowing an officer with known anger issues to remain on the street, armed and potentially placed in the position that Torres was when he shot Geer presents a factual basis for a claim against the county and/or supervisory personnel and is relevant to the wrongful death claims already filed” by Maura Harrington, Geer’s longtime partner and the mother of their two daughters.

Morrogh sought much the same information when trying to decide whether to charge Torres with a crime but, he said in a letter in December, the police repeatedly refused. Lieberman noted that when Morrogh was asked by Sen. Charles Grassley about why he hadn’t prosecuted the case, Morrogh said “the decision made by the chief of police and his advisers to withhold the requested materials effectively prevented me from completing the investigation and rendering my decision.”

Included in the newly released documents was an e-mail sent by Morrogh to Maj. Ted Arnn, the head of Fairfax police internal affairs, in October 2013. Morrogh acknowledged that case law, known as the “Garrity” decision, prohibits criminal investigators from using any internal statement an officer was compelled to make by his supervisors, such as internal-affairs statements.

“At this point,” Morrogh wrote to Arnn, “I would like to look at any complaints filed against the officer involved. From there I am hoping to sort through what is there and ensure that the ‘Garrity’ rule is not breached. I want to be very careful not to use anything protected by the ‘Garrity’ decision in following up on anything that I find in these complaints.”

Hidden answers sought in controversial police shooting

Geer family lawyers seek FCPD internal affairs files

by Gregg MacDonald Staff writer

Lawyers representing the family of John Geer, who was shot and killed in 2013 by a Fairfax County police officer, say that the 11,000 pages of documents publicly released by the county last Friday evening are not enough; they want the shooter’s internal affairs files.

“While it can certainly be considered progress in the case, the large dump of un-indexed documents is unwieldy for the public, and there is still relevant information yet to be produced,” said attorney Michael Lieberman, who represents the Geer family in a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Fairfax County.

According to county officials, on Aug. 29, 2013, Fairfax County police officers responded to a call by Geer’s domestic partner, Maura Harrington, reporting a dispute with Geer. Geer had thrown some of her belongings outdoors. After police arrived, witnesses claimed the 46-year-old Geer stood unarmed with his hands above his head under the frame of his front door as he was questioned by police, some of whom had their guns drawn and pointed at him. One of those officers then shot and killed him.

Seventeen months later, on Jan. 5, 2015, after the wrongful-death suit had been filed by Geer’s family in 2014 and a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge ordered public disclosure of the shooter’s identity, Fairfax County for the first time released the name of the shooter as Pfc. Adam D. Torres.

In the subsequent Jan. 30 public release of 11,000 related documents including sworn statements, Torres claims that during the incident Geer quickly brought both his hands down to his waist — potentially to grasp an unseen firearm — and Torres shot him.

But six other witnesses, including four fellow police officers, said that never happened.

Officer Rodney Barnes, who was closest to Geer, and who said he actually was speaking with Geer when he was shot, said Geer simply reached down to scratch his nose and that his hands had already gone back up when the fatal shot was fired by Torres. Other officers with lesser vantage points concurred in sworn statements that Geer’s hands had only ever been lowered to his face or to “shoulder height.”

In his statement, Barnes goes on to say that Geer was not acting erratically or uncontrollably and had even said to Barnes during the incident that “he did not want to get shot and did not want anyone else to get shot … he did not want to die.”

Mike Curtis, founder of the watchdog blog “Northern Virginia Cop Block” and the “Justice for John Geer” campaign, said many inconsistencies and issues still remain unanswered in the Geer case.

“One message we want to express is the unaddressed danger that calling the police in Fairfax County obviously can present. I think it is incredibly sad how Maura must feel now when all she originally was trying to do was call the police to help de-escalate a bad situation. I feel this is a very well-documented occurrence in which people call the police for help in dealing with loved ones under emotional strain, only to lose them at the hands of trigger-happy police officers.”

Lieberman agrees that many questions still need to be answered. He said there seems to be no good reason why Torres had his gun pointed toward Geer “at center mass,” a term meaning he was prepared for a kill shot, when by all other accounts Geer was unarmed, in control and being cooperative with police.

In addition, Lieberman said the results of a police internal affairs investigation into a March 2013 incident in which Torres had a “meltdown” in court — openly cursing an assistant county prosecutor and storming out of the courtroom — have not been made available to him.

“Allowing an officer with known anger issues to remain on the street, armed and potentially placed in the position that Torres was when he shot Geer presents a factual basis for a claim against the county … and is relevant to the wrongful death claims already filed,” he wrote in a motion seeking access to the Internal Affairs report.

Whatever eventually results from the its final outcome, the Geer case already has caused procedural ripples at the highest levels of county government.

“The materials released demonstrate that there are differing perceptions of what happened and why, as the officers and witness statements show,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova. “It is now up to investigators with the Department of Justice and the court to decide where to go from here. The Board of Supervisors is pursuing changes in our policies regarding when and how information is released following a police-involved incident. This will be addressed swiftly.”

John Geer Shooting: Officer Adam Torres Displayed ‘Anger Issues’ 5 Months Before Shooting, Report Says

John Geer an unarmed dad of two girls, was killed 17 months ago by Fairfax County, Virginia, police officer Adam Torres. On Friday, a judge ordered the Fairfax cops to make Torres’ internal affairs records public — records that Geer’s family believes will show that the killer cop had previously known “anger issues” and should not have been on the scene of a delicate domestic disturbance call, carrying a gun.

About five months before he shot and killed Geer, Torres had a temper tantrum in a courthouse, reportedly screaming at a county prosecutor who decided to drop charges against a DUI suspect Torres had arrested — an incident that, according to Geer family laywer Ben DiMuro, demonstrates that Geer had “anger issues.”

“It raises a reasonable suspicion that perhaps these issues carry forward into the future,” DiMuro said in a local media interview.

The judge Friday ordered that documents related to the investigation of that courthouse outburst be released.

Officer Rodney Barnes, who was also on the scene when Torres shot Geer, told an internal affairs detective that Torres confessed that he and his wife had been arguing that morning.

Excerpts from the internal affairs interview with Barnes can be heard in the audio clip, above. The full interview with Barnes, lasting more than an hour, can be heard at this link.

The Geer family also hopes the records will shed light on why the department did not begin its internal affair inquiry into the fatal shooting of the 46-year-old John Geer until September of 2014 — more than a year after Torres killed Geer.

The timing of the investigation into the shooting has raised eyebrows because it did not begin until shortly after Geer’s family filed a $12 million wrongful death lawsuit against the county.

Geer was killed on August 29, 2013, as he stood in the doorway of his home with his hands raised, according to accounts from witnesses and police officers on the scene that day. Police were called by Geer’s longtime domestic partner and mother of his children, Maura Harrington, who said that Geer was throwing her belongings out of the house after she told him that she wanted to end their relationship.

But Geer was not suspected of any violent offense and had no known criminal record. The Inquisitr previously reported on the John Geer shooting, in a story that can be accessed at this link.

On Friday, January 30, following a judge’s order, Fairfax County released 11,000 pages of documents related to the John Geer shooting, including audio of interviews with Rodney Barnes and Adam Torres.

Time to restore civilian control in wake of police killings

Over 17 months ago, an unarmed John Geer standing in the doorway of his Springfield home was gunned down by an unidentified Fairfax County Police officer. For 17 months, Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler refused to identify the killer or to explain why Mr. Geer was shot. The Police refused to tell the Geer family who fired the fatal shot or why. They refused to provide information about the shooter to the Commonwealth Attorney, the official responsible for bringing charges in cases of possible police wrongdoing. And, when the frustrated Commonwealth Attorney turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney, the Police refused to give him the evidence requested. A pattern?

While this incredible display of defiance of civilian authority continued over 17 months, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, the elected officials who by law are supposed to oversee the Police Department and who appointed the stonewalling Police Chief, stood by in silence. Only when Geer’s family went to court and a judge ordered the release of information did the Police finally release 11,000 pages of material—with no guarantee of that material’s completeness.

From what we know so far from the documents, it is clear that Police Chief Roessler knew the shooter, Officer Adam Torres. Indeed Roessler met with him within hours of Mr. Geer’s death, although department investigators were not allowed to meet with Torres for two days. It is also clear from accounts of all other officers at the scene that Mr. Geer did not provoke the shooting. It was not a justifiable homicide. If you, dear reader, or I had been seen killing an unarmed neighbor, what do you think would have happened? Right, we would have been arrested on the spot, tossed in jail, and charged within hours with murder, or manslaughter at the very least. In the 74 years since the FCPD was created by the Board of Supervisors, not one single officer has been charged with any offense for killing someone in the line of duty. There have been a lot of killings—including several suspicious ones involving unarmed citizens in very recent years. All have been investigated by the killers’ fellow officers. My own experience and the public record as far as it is known suggests that most killings in the line of duty were unavoidable and justified. But 100 percent perfection over 74 years? Not likely.

So, you might ask, where have Chairman Sharon Bulova and nine District Supervisors been during the 17 months since John Geer’s murder, or indeed in the weeks following other suspicious killings investigated only by the FCPD? To date, they have been silent—at no point either exercising “supervision” of the police or offering explanation to the Geer family, other families or to the public.

In January 2015, only after the Geer family finally filed a $12 million suit, did the BOS Chairman offer to hire a consultant to examine the public disclosure policies of county police and suggest “best practices” that the County might “consider”--a response somewhere between inadequate and arrogant. It is time to end police impunity in Fairfax County and restore a semblance of civilian authority. In my view, the essential corrective actions required include: 1) relieving Roessler and hiring a new Chief with very explicit direction on County Police policy for total transparency to the public and accountability to the BOS; and, 2) creating an independent Civilian Oversight Board to investigate complaints of FCPD abuse and unjustified use of lethal force.

John Lovaas, Reston

Hidden answers sought in controversial police shooting

Geer family lawyers seek FCPD internal affairs files

by Gregg MacDonald Staff writer

But six other witnesses, including four fellow police officers, said that never happened.

Whatever eventually results from the its final outcome, the Geer case already has caused procedural ripples at the highest levels of county government.

gmacdonald@fairfaxtimes.com

Judge Orders Police Release Internal Affairs Records in John Geer Shooting

By David Culver, Julie Carey and James Doubek

A judge ordered Fairfax County Police to release internal affairs records of the officer who shot and killed John Geer in August 2013. (Published Friday, Feb 6, 2015)

Updated at 8:53 PM EST on Friday, Feb 6, 2015

A judge ordered Fairfax County Police to release internal affairs records of the officer who shot and killed John Geer in August 2013.

The records include current and past actions taken against Officer Adam Torres. Early last month, county officials named Torres as the officer who fired the fatal shot during a police standoff.

Today's ruling enables Geer family attorneys to find out what, if any, action the police department took against Torres following the shooting. Additionally, documents will reveal the names of supervising officers who were on the scene at the time Torres shot Geer.

Five months before the Geer shooting, previously released investigative documents said Torres lost his temper at a courthouse, angered by a prosecutor's decision to drop charges in a DUI arrest he'd made.

The judge stipulated that if the Department of Justice, which is conducting its own investigation, asks the court to seal those files from the public, the judge would hear the motion within the next two weeks.

The case is in the hands of U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights division. The Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh would normally handle such a review and decide whether criminal charges are merited. But in late 2013, Fairfax County Police refused to turn over some information Morrogh was seeking.

He then referred the case to federal authorities, where the case remains more than a year later.

Even though 17 months have passed, there's been no determination about whether the shooting was justified or whether Torres should be charged.

The ruling is a big win for the Geer family, who have filed a $12 million wrongful death lawsuit against Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler and the three police officers involved. In December, a judge ordered the county to release documents to Geer family attorneys. Last week, the county released more than 11,000 pages of documents that are part of the investigation into Geer's Aug. 29, 2013 death.

Many of the police interviews released last week confirm what Geer's father and other witnesses to the shooting have always believed.

But documents show four other officers saw it much differently.

Officer Rodney Barnes told investigators, "When the shot happened, his hands were up. I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I didn’t see what he saw."

Geer family attorney Michael Lieberman said earlier that the discrepancy between what Torres and other officers told investigators indicates "that John Geer was shot wrongfully, unjustifiably."

The judge's order Friday gives the Fairfax County Police Department until Feb. 20 to turn over the documents.

Family of man shot by Fairfax Co. officer to demand internal affairs files

By Kathy Stewart /WTOP

WASHINGTON — It has been more than a year since a Fairfax County police officer shot and killed Springfield, Virginia, resident John Geer, and the man’s family is still in a legal battle over his death.

Geer was killed in his doorway in August 2013 by county police officer Adam Torres during a standoff. Geer had guns in his home according to a report released last year and some witnesses claim that he was unarmed when he was shot.

Geer’s family is suing the police department for wrongful death.

Some say they believe the police department has been stonewalling the public and prosecutors in the case, but the lawyers for Geer’s family will ask for all internal police affairs files on Torres at a hearing Friday afternoon in Fairfax County Circuit Court, The Washington Post reports.

The Fairfax County police department had remained silent on the August 2013 shooting until Jan. 30, 2015, when a court order forced the release 11,000 pages of documents in the case.

In addition to the internal affairs files, Geer’s family will also request the files on an incident at the Fairfax County courthouse where Torres was fuming and cursing out an assistant county prosecutor, The Post reports.

There are three other internal affairs complaints or cases against Torres and the family lawyers want information to them as well.

Two of the complaints involved car accidents that Torres had in his police cruiser, but neither of the accidents was the officer’s fault and the third complaint involved a suspect’s lost property, The Washington Post reports.

Also, the family lawyers want documents on the internal affairs investigation into the shooting. That investigation began on September 2014.

Officers say man had hands up when shot by Fairfax police

Associated Press 8:01 p.m. EST January 31, 2015

FAIRFAX – Newly released investigative records show a man who was fatally shot by a Fairfax County police officer in the doorway of his home in 2013 had his hands up and was unarmed at the time.

Fairfax County released more than 11,000 pages of documents on the shooting Friday night under court order 17 months after the shooting. The records reveal John Greer told police he didn't want to die that day after a domestic dispute at his Springfield home.

"I don't want anybody to get shot," Greer told police during the standoff. "And I don't wanna get shot, 'cause I don't want to die today."

According to the records, one officer was talking to Greer, trying to ease him through the standoff when Officer Adam Torres shot and killed Greer from 17 feet away. Torres told investigators he saw Greer move his hands to his waist and thought he might be reaching for a weapon.

Three other officers and a lieutenant contradicted that account. The other officers agreed Greer was unarmed, had his hands above his shoulders and did not move them to his waist.

"When the shot happened, his hands were up," Officer Rodney Barnes, who had been talking to Geer, told investigators. "I'm not here to throw (Torres) under the bus or anything like that, but I didn't see what he saw."

Torres did not issue a warning to Greer before he fired his weapon, according to the documents.

"He killed that guy and he didn't have to," Officer David Parker told investigators.

The documents also show Torres was involved in an argument with his wife minutes before his arrival at Greer's home, and that may have caused him to miss key information about the situation.

Torres told investigators he considered Greer "a credible threat" because he had placed a gun at his feet at the beginning of the standoff. Torres said he thought Greer could have had another weapon hidden at his waist.

"It was not accidental," Torres told investigators. "No. It was justified. I have no doubt about that at all. I don't feel sorry for shooting the guy at all."

Torres has not spoken publicly about the shooting, and has not responded to requests for comment.

The records also reveal why the Fairfax County prosecutor passed the case to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria. Months before the Greer shooting, Torres had an angry "meltdown" during an internal affairs investigation in the county courthouse. During that incident, Torres cursed at a prosecutor and stormed out, according to the documents.

After police refused to make the internal affairs file available to Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond Morrogh, the prosecutor passed the Greer investigation to the Justice Department.

Greer's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county. Family lawyer Mike Lieberman told The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/1ClAABZ ) the police department knew of the discrepancies between Torres' account and the other officers within days of the shooting.

"If this was a similar situation involving two ordinary citizens, there is little doubt that any individual who shot an unarmed man who was holding his hands up in the air and claiming that he did not want to hurt anyone would have been arrested and charged," Lieberman said.

John B. Geer had hands up when shot by police, four officers say in documents

By Tom Jackman January 31 at 6:52 PM

John B. Geer stood with his hands on top of the storm door of his Springfield, Va., townhouse and calmly said to four Fairfax County police officers with guns pointed at him: “I don’t want anybody to get shot . . . . And I don’t wanna get shot, ’cause I don’t want to die today.”

But as one officer tried to ease Geer through the standoff, another officer, Adam D. Torres, shot and killed Geer from 17 feet away, telling investigators that he saw Geer move his hands to his waist and thought he might be reaching for a weapon, according to newly released documents from the county.

The other three officers, and a lieutenant watching from a distance, said they saw no such thing, the documents show.

How and why Geer died that afternoon in August 2013 after police responded to a domestic dispute at his home have remained a mystery, as police and prosecutors have declined to comment on the case for 17 months. But Friday night, under a court order obtained by lawyers for the Geer family, Fairfax released more than 11,000 pages of documents that shed new light on the police shooting.

The other officers contradicted Torres’s story, all agreeing that Geer had his hands above his shoulders, did not move them to his waist and was unarmed when he was shot.

The documents also show that Torres was involved in an argument with his wife in the 16 minutes leading up to his arrival at Geer’s home that may have caused him to miss key facts about Geer and the situation at the townhouse. He also did not issue a warning to Geer before he pulled the trigger.

“When the shot happened, his hands were up,” Officer Rodney Barnes, who had been talking to Geer at the moment of the shooting, told investigators that evening. “I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I didn’t see what he saw.”

The documents, which include police investigative reports, transcripts, timelines, photos and dispatcher audiotapes, indicate that Torres said he considered Geer “a credible threat,” because he had placed a holstered gun at his feet at the beginning of the standoff. But the other three officers told investigators that they never considered firing at Geer.

“It’s not good,” Officer David Parker, who was crouching 15 feet behind Torres, told investigators. “He killed that guy and he didn’t have to.”

But Torres said he thought Geer could have had another weapon hidden at his waist. “It was not accidental,” Torres told investigators. “No, it was justified. I have no doubt about that at all. I don’t feel sorry for shooting the guy at all.”

The files also reveal for the first time why the Fairfax prosecutor shifted the case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria: an internal affairs investigation into a loud, angry “meltdown” Torres had in the Fairfax County Courthouse. In that incident, five months before the Geer shooting, Torres repeatedly cursed at an assistant county prosecutor and stormed out of the courthouse, according to the prosecutor’s statement included in the released documents.

But county police refused to make the internal affairs file available to Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh. A frustrated Morrogh has said he passed the investigation to the Justice Department because he was unable to get anywhere with the Fairfax police department.

Mike Lieberman, an attorney for the Geer family, said: “If this was a similar situation involving two ordinary citizens, there is little doubt that any individual who shot an unarmed man who was holding his hands up in the air and claiming that he did not want to hurt anyone would have been arrested and charged.

“Within days of the shooting, the police department, at the highest levels, knew of the gross discrepancies between Officer Torres’s version of the events and the accounts provided by every other eyewitness.”

Torres has not spoken publicly since the shooting, and he did not return e-mail and phone messages Friday. His lawyer, John Carroll, also did not return messages.

Sharon Bulova, the chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on the case.

Geer’s father, Don Geer, also witnessed the shooting from behind a police line and said the police statements corroborate his own account. “Four officers saw the same thing I did,” he said.

The family, on behalf of Geer’s two daughters, has filed a wrongful death suit against the county. “John had his hands above his shoulders and he was unarmed,” Don Geer said. “And there was no justification for Officer Torres to shoot him. I think they should go through and press charges against Torres and let the legal system do what it does.”

His ‘hands were up’

The police documents paint a vivid picture of a tense 44-minute showdown between Geer, 46, and the officers who had come to resolve a domestic dispute between Geer and his live-in partner of 24 years, Maura Harrington. The couple, who had two daughters together, had just had an argument over the phone, and Geer had begun throwing some of Harrington’s belongings onto their front yard. Harrington came home and called 911.

When Torres, then a 30-year-old officer with seven years’ experience, and Officer David Neil arrived at 2:52 p.m., Geer immediately turned and walked inside the townhouse. As the officers approached, Geer held up a holstered handgun and, according to both officers, said, “I have a gun; I will use it if I need to because you guys have guns.”

Torres quickly ducked behind a tree trunk 17 feet from the front door, pulled his gun and aimed it at Geer. Neil pulled his gun but kept it pointed down. Geer soon placed his gun on the ground, and no officer saw it again, according to their statements.

Five minutes later, Barnes arrived. Neil went to a nearby townhouse to interview Harrington.

Barnes, a 49-year-old former Navy seaman, was a trained negotiator who was on patrol that day. He began to develop a rapport with Geer, and he told investigators that he felt Geer was comfortable with him, the records show.

Geer kept his hands on top of the storm door and repeatedly declined Barnes’s requests to come out, the officers reported. Instead, Geer repeatedly asked Torres to lower his weapon. Torres did so, but whenever Geer announced that he had to scratch his nose, Torres would refocus his aim on Geer’s chest, the documents show.

Officers Parker and Benjamin Kushner arrived next and took up positions behind vehicles in the townhouse community’s parking lot. Parker had a rifle and Kushner had a shotgun, the reports said. Each said they kept their eyes trained on Geer, with Parker telling investigators, according to transcripts: “I never even took my gun off of safety.” They said they could hear the conversation between Barnes and Geer, and both Parker and Barnes recalled Geer saying he did not want to get shot.

Meanwhile, Neil interviewed Harrington and radioed his findings to the other officers. Geer had “made comments that he’s 45 seconds from putting a bullet in his head,” Neil told his fellow officers, according to the transcripts, “and he told a friend of his that he had a gun and he might do a suicide-by-cop type of situation. Be advised.”

Neil also reiterated Harrington’s statement that she made in her 911 call that Geer had other guns, including a handgun and a rifle, in the house, “so there might be some more weapons inside the house as well.” Torres would later tell investigators that he did not hear any updates from Neil’s interview with Harrington about Geer’s state of mind or that he had other guns in the house.

But at 3:34 p.m., as Barnes was still talking with Geer, Torres squeezed his trigger and shot Geer, surprising the three other officers, the documents say. Geer closed the front door,and Barnes and Torres darted to the side of the townhouse. “Who shot?” Barnes said he demanded angrily. “I did,” Torres said he told him. “I’m sorry.”

But police, unsure whether Geer was alive and armed, did not enter the house for 70 minutes, until the SWAT team arrived with an armored truck and battering ram. When the tactical officers entered, Geer was dead just inside the front door.

Torres said he fired because Geer had been complaining about being thirsty “and then . . . he brought both his hands down really quick near his waist, and I pulled the trigger one time, and hit him under his right rib cage.”

Homicide Detective John Farrell, who was the lead investigator into the shooting, asked whether the shot was accidental. Torres emphasized that it was not. “He brought his hands down too far,” Torres said.

Barnes told investigators that Geer’s “hands were up.” Parker told investigators that Geer “started to move his left hand barely off the sill of the door.” Kushner said Geer’s hands were “right around his face area.” Lt. Ronald Manzo, who also was at the scene, said Geer’s hands were at “about his shoulder height.”

Investigation begins

As police investigated the shooting, detectives questioned Torres about whether there were any other reasons he might have shot Geer, the records show.

The detectives learned that immediately after the shooting, Torres told Barnes that he had been arguing with his wife on the phone as he drove to the call. The argument may have caused Torres to miss key facts about the situation that had been broadcast by dispatchers, the documents show, such as the warning that Geer had other weapons in the house.

Farrell and his partner, homicide Detective Chris Flanagan, pressed Torres about the phone call with his wife: “Do you shoot Mr. Geer because you’re angry at your wife?” Farrell asked him, a transcript shows.

“No,” Torres replied. “Not at all.”

But the investigation continued to delve into Torres’s background as the county prosecutor considered whether to seek an indictment.

In particular, Morrogh was aware of Torres’s blowup in the courthouse with an assistant prosecutor five months earlier. The prosecutor was Chuck Peters, a former Fairfax deputy police chief who became a lawyer after he retired.

In March 2013, while handling a drunken-driving case brought by Torres, Peters told the officer that there were problems with the case. Torres repeatedly cursed at Peters and then stormed out of the courthouse. Word of the incident reached police headquarters, and Peters told investigators that five top police commanders called him to apologize for Torres’s outburst.

An internal affairs investigation was launched, but the outcome is unknown. When Morrogh requested the file in the fall of 2013, the police department refused to give it to him. In January 2014, he sent the case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, who also ran into resistance from the Fairfax police, the Justice Department said. The case is still being reviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division, with no known resolution date.

Lieberman, the Geer family lawyer, said, “It is hard to believe that a Virginia state grand jury has not been presented with this information and that it took Fairfax County 17 months to disclose this information to the Geer family.”

Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.

Fairfax County officials plan to scrap a policy that enables police stonewalling

By Editorial Board January 19

ANY DAY now, Fairfax County officials may drop their stonewalling response to the death of John Geer, who was shot by a county police officer in 2013 as he stood unarmed in the doorway of his home. Any day now, the county police and county attorney’s office may produce the documents they’ve been ordered by a judge to turn over in a civil suit brought by Mr. Geer’s family. After nearly 17 months of foot-dragging and unwarranted obstructions mounted by the county, it’s high time.

Even the county’s Board of Supervisors appears to have lost patience with the arrogance of the police and the county attorney. Having previously ordered these officials to fully comply with the judge’s order, the board last week decided that the policies governing disclosure in police-involved shootings — until now determined by the police themselves — should be rewritten by an outside expert.

Supervisors adopted a motion by Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) that said they are “sensitive” to concerns that the police chief “should not be responsible for both establishing and implementing the policies for disclosures related to police-involved shootings.”

That statement, better late than never, represents progress, although the board should broaden it to include other sorts of police-involved killings. (Eric Garner, the New York man who died at the hands of a police officer in Staten Island who put him in a chokehold, was not shot.)

It also signals a clear reprimand. Although the supervisors have been complicit in the delays and lack of disclosure until now, they are right to have said that it should not “take a court order, entered 16 months after the shooting, for information about an incident like this to be released.”

The documents that will be released to Mr. Geer’s family in compliance with the order should clear up a number of questions that still surround the death.

First among them is why Officer Adam D. Torres shot Mr. Geer, hitting him in the chest and killing him. Having maintained a virtual information blackout since the incident, police recently said that Mr. Geer was “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police,” a statement at odds with witness accounts and which, coming so long after the fact, lacks credibility.

Mr. Geer was shot after speaking to police from behind his storm door for some 45 minutes. He had had a noisy dispute that day with his longtime girlfriend, who is also the mother of his children, but he had committed no crime. It is outrageous that nearly a year and a half has passed with no explanation for his death.

After a dispute between state prosecutors and county officials over the release of information, the Geer case was transferred to the Justice Department, where the civil rights division is investigating. Meanwhile, county police have refused to budge from a policy of withholding information until a decision on whether to bring charges against Mr. Torres is made.

Such a policy makes no sense when it is used as a pretext, month after month, to keep the public in the dark. In deciding to rewrite the policy, the county board has taken the first step toward a more sensible stance on disclosure.

New details about John Geer’s death further undermine police department’s credibility

SIXTEEN MONTHS after a Fairfax County police officer shot John Geer to death on the threshold of his home, the police department has finally offered what it would like people to believe is a justification for the shooting. Yet the “information” provided by the police is so skeletal, so late and so jarringly at odds with other information that it serves only to further undermine the department’s credibility.

Under pressure from federal prosecutors and a state court, the police did — finally — divulge the name of the officer who shot Mr. Geer once in the chest, killing him. It is Adam D. Torres, an eight-year veteran of the force who is 31 years old.

Other information released by the department makes scant sense.

The police say the officer fired because Mr. Geer was “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police.” Yet if, in fact, Mr. Geer did brandish a weapon, why did Officer Torres alone fire his weapon while several others on the scene did not? Why did Officer Torres fire just one bullet, when police are trained to fire multiple shots in the event they face a lethal threat?

And if Mr. Geer was shot because police saw him flash a weapon, why in the world would it take them 16 months to say so — to provide so basic a piece of information?

Moreover, the police said that they found a loaded gun inside the house, a few feet from the doorway where Mr. Geer was shot — but that the gun was holstered. Does that mean that the officer discharged his weapon because he glimpsed a holstered weapon? Did he ever see the weapon unholstered?

If Mr. Geer threatened police with a weapon, why did none of the other witnesses, including neighbors who watched the standoff, see a gun? Why would Mr. Geer’s father have said months ago that police told him Mr. Geer was unarmed when he was shot, an assertion that the police never denied?

Police officials had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to release the most bare-bones information, which should have been released within hours of Mr. Geer’s shooting. Now they offer dribs and drabs rather than a credible and full narrative of an event at Mr. Geer’s home that lasted more than a half-hour. Last month, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows ordered police to release information about the shooting to Mr. Geer’s family within 30 days. The information provided so far hardly counts as compliance.

Will it take further court orders, further subpoenas from the Justice Department and further pointed letters from Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the new head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to pry a full accounting from the police department? And will Fairfax’s elected officials continue to stand by as the department re-brands the county as a bastion of official arrogance?

Fairfax County to hire expert to examine policies on information in police shootings

By Tom Jackman

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, responding to criticism that the county has not released timely information on the 2013 police killing of John Geer, voted Tuesday to hire an outside expert to help it review and revise the rules on disclosure in officer-involved shootings.

Fairfax officials have dealt with fatal police shootings before, and rulings on whether a shooting is justifiable are normally made by the Fairfax prosecutor within three or four months. But in this case, 16 months have passed since the death of Geer without a decision by local or federal prosecutors on whether the officer who shot him, Adam D. Torres, should be charged. Fairfax police have stood by their policy of not discussing a case before a charging decision is made.

Some police departments have policies stating that an officer’s name shall be released within a certain number of days or weeks after a shooting, while others do not have a policy. Fairfax’s policy states that the police shall release an officer’s age, length of service and assignment after a shooting, which Fairfax police refused to do in the Geer case until last week. County policy also holds that the chief may release an officer’s name only after a decision has been made on charging the officer and after a review of the officer’s safety.

After a year had passed, Geer’s family filed a civil lawsuit seeking the name of the officer and the circumstances of the shooting. Geer was standing, unarmed, in the doorway of his Springfield townhouse when Torres fired one shot into Geer’s chest, witnesses and police said. The police released Torres’s name last week, and the judge in the civil case ordered them to release far more information to the Geer family’s lawyers, though that has not yet happened.

“Fairfax County residents deserve a government that is open and transparent,” board chairman Sharon Bulova (D) said, “and they deserve to know the facts relating to the incident in a timely manner,” subject to the concerns of the investigation and the officer’s safety. “The Board of Supervisors does not believe it should take a court order, entered 16 months after the shooting, for information about an incident like this to be released.”

John Geer was standing, unarmed, in the doorway of his Springfield townhouse when he was shot by a Fairfax County police officer, witnesses and police said. (Photo by Maura Harrington)

Bulova’s motion was not universally welcomed. Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) said there was no need to seek outside assistance.

“I feel very strongly,” said Hyland, head of the board’s public safety committee, “that the staff we have, in our police chief, our former police chief and county attorney have the capacity to look at the rules we have been following to come back to the board to make recommendations as to how these rules or policies should be changed.”

Hyland was referring to Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., who has refused to discuss the Geer shooting at all; deputy county executive and former police chief David Rohrer; and County Attorney David P. Bobzien, whose office has resisted investigative requests from both local and federal prosecutors, both prosecutors have said.

Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) reluctantly supported the idea, saying it was “too little too late.” He said it was the board’s “job to make policy, not hire an ‘outside expert’ to do our job for us.”

Tom Jackman is a native of Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.

County board to review procedures in wake of police shooting

Lengthy investigation, lack of transparency central issues in Geer case

by Kali Schumitz

Fairfax County will hire an outside consultant to review its public disclosure rules, following a controversial police shooting in 2013.

In a resolution Tuesday, members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors said the unprecedented length of the investigation into the officer-involved shooting death of John Geer has led to a lack of closure for the family and a perceived lack of transparency to the general public.

Geer was shot in the doorway of his home by a Fairfax County police officer in August 2013 when police responded to a domestic dispute. He was unarmed, although police have said they believed he had weapons inside the home.

After completing their internal investigation, county police turned the matter over to the county prosecutor’s office for review. Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh determined that his office had a conflict of interest in the case and passed it on to the U.S. Department of Justice for review.

The Justice Department has provided little public information, even to county officials, about the status of its review.

In the meantime, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors directed the police chief and county attorney to comply with a court request for documents related to the case as part of a civil suit. A lawsuit has been filed against the county on behalf of Geer’s children.

“Although compliance with the judge’s order in the Geer case should go a long way to meet the demands for transparency relating to the shooting of Mr. Geer, the Board of Supervisors does not believe it should take a court order, entered 16 months after the shooting, for information about an incident like this to be released,” Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova (D-At large) said, reading the motion that the board approved.

Bulova said she has reached out to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring for assistance on the process of finding an independent expert to support the county’s policy review. The board asked that the contract be issued by March.

The measure did not receive the unanimous support of the board.

Supervisor Michael Frey (R-Sully) disputed the notion that the county has done anything wrong. It has been a year since the case was turned over to the Department of Justice, and it sat with the county prosecutor’s office for several months before that, Frey said.

“It is not the fault of any of our actions that the U.S. Department of Justice has not completed its investigation,” Frey said. “That is not anything that we did. There is no lack of transparency on our part.”

Supervisor Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) also voted against the motion because he believes the county has the resources to do such a review in-house.

Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville), who co-sponsored Bulova’s motion, said while he has faith in the abilities of county staff, he believes an independent review is necessary to alleviate the public’s concerns.

“There is a perception within the public that police should not be advising us on police disclosure procedures,” Foust said. “I think going outside for that expertise should go a long way toward addressing anyone’s concern.”

kschumitz@fairfaxtimes.com

Fairfax County Supervisors Seek Outside Help with Transparency

“Independent expertise” to advise on information disclosure policies.

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chairman Sharon Bulova (center) reads her statement calling for outside input on improving information disclosure policies. Photo by Tim Peterson.

By Tim Peterson

Eight days after offering the public the first of any kind of official explanation for officer-involved shooting of Springfield resident John Geer, the Board of Supervisors took another step.

Though they didn’t share any further information on the case, chairman Sharon Bulova and the panel returned from an extended closed session on Jan. 13 with a motion with the potential to affect government transparency.

“Until John Geer was shot on August 2[9], 2013,” Bulova’s motion statement reads, “the procedures adopted by the Police Chief for public disclosure regarding officer involved shootings seemed to establish a reasonable balance between the county’s duty to make timely disclosure and the concerns the police chief has expressed about conducting a professional investigation and the safety of officers involved in a shooting incident.”

The statement goes on to explain that the police policies don’t account for the way this particular case has been passed from the Fairfax County Police Department to the Commonwealth Attorney to the Department of Justice, all over the course of the past 16 months and change.

THOSE 16 MONTHS included a $12 million civil case filed against the county. As part of that case, a Fairfax Circuit Court judge has ordered more documents and records of the police action the day of the shooting be produced within the month.

#“The board is also aware of concerns expressed by some members of the public to the effect that the police chief should not be responsible for both establishing and implementing the policies for disclosures relating to police-involved shootings,” Bulova’s statement reads.

#There are no more admissions or revelations on the Geer case itself. Instead, Bulova claims to have “reached out to Attorney General Mark Herring for his suggestions for a process for us to identify professional organizations and/or resources that can work with us to review our policies and recommend appropriate changes.”

The idea would be to prevent such a delay from happening again, given a case with similar circumstances.

In addition to her attempt to connect with Herring, Bulova moved to direct the County Executive to locate “independent expertise in the field of Police Department operations and, specifically, in the area of policies and procedures with respect to information disclosures in the case of police involved shootings.”

The County Executive would also be charged with figuring out funding source and procedure for the board to retain such a resource.

Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) was the first of all the supervisors to weigh in on the motion.

“I reluctantly support the motion,” he said. “I think it’s too little too late. The actual motion gives no policy direction on transparency, though I believe that’s the intent.

“There’s no provision to engage our citizens in the process,” he continued. “This to me smells of outsourcing policy-making. I hope that’s not the intent. I believe we need to engage our citizens, engage our staff and have a transparency conversation on this topic.”

Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) didn’t read the motion as an attempt to exclude the public, nor as too little too late. But, he conceded, “there is a perception in the public that police should not be advising us on police disclosure procedures. I think that’s legitimate.”

Supervisor Michael Frey (R-Sully) voiced his lack of support for the motion, saying: “Our role in the investigation was completed promptly. “It’s not any of our actions, or a result of anything we did that the U.S. Department of Justice has not completed their investigation over the course of a year. That’s not anything we did, there’s no lack of transparency on our part or any fault of our process.”

SUPERVISORS Cook (R-Braddock), Hyland (D-Mount Vernon), Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill), McKay (D-Lee) and Smyth (D-Providence) all signed on with the motion, acknowledging the benefit of looking at policy changes to speed up the information disclosure process.

“The community needs to know where does the buck stop?” said Hudgins. “It actually does stop with us. This gives us more than the opportunity to maintain the due diligence to the case that it needs. It gives us also an opportunity to work with the community, I hope.”

Bulova’s motion calls for contracting with whatever organization the County Executive, in consultation with the Attorney General’s office, comes up with by February or March.

The motion passed with only supervisors Frey and Hyland dissenting.

Facebook-organized Protesters in Fairfax Demand Justice for John Geer

Supervisors’ responsibility also highlighted.

Jason McCormack of Centreville demonstrates for increased police accountability at a Jan. 8 protest in Fairfax. Photo by Tim Peterson.

By Tim Peterson

Mike Curtis of Manassas (left) and Nathan Cox of Richmond (right) spoke to media and demonstrators demanding an independent investigation of John Geer’s death.

Cars honked in acknowledgement as Centreville resident Jason McCormack stood alongside Chain Bridge Road in Fairfax, near the Fairfax County Courthouse, with a handmade sign that read “Cops Are Bound By The Law, Too.”

McCormack had joined several dozen protesters from around the state, braving freezing temperatures in the late morning on Jan. 8, demanding Fairfax County police answer for the shooting death of Springfield resident John Geer.

The protest was organized through a Facebook group called “Justice for John Geer” that at the time had nearly 700 members.

“I’m here for police accountability all across the board,” McCormack said, his head almost completely obscured by a Baltimore Ravens beanie and a grey and black scarf.

“I lived in the court across from the Geer’s house and it could’ve been my kids out playing when the shot was fired. It could’ve been a whole other story. We need to stop letting the gun be the first thing you pull.”

Following a domestic dispute with his longtime partner Maura Harrington, police had arrived at Geer’s home and spoke with him for over half an hour while he stood in his doorway, unarmed, with his hands raised and resting on the frame.

As he began to lower his hands, he was shot in the chest and died in his house without receiving medical attention.

By Tim Peterson

On the Monday before the demonstration, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chairman Sharon Bulova came forward to release an explanation from the county for the first time in nearly 17 months since the Aug. 29, 2013 shooting.

Bulova’s statement came with a brief official account from the county of the events surrounding the shooting, that named the officer involved as PFC Adam Torres.

“I have been frustrated and disappointed with how long this investigation has taken,” she said, citing the case’s changing hands from the Commonwealth Attorney to the Department of Justice as a reason for the delay in information being released.

Protest organizer Mike Curtis of Manassas urged demonstrators and the public to demand more explanation from their public leaders.

“Don't just let her have her few minutes on the news and tell everybody she's for the same thing you are,” he said. “She needs to be held accountable too.”

Curtis is also one of the founders of the Justice for John Geer Facebook group.

He was joined in addressing the media and demonstrators by Richmond resident Nathan Cox, who founded the public interest Virginia Cop Block that seeks police accountability and transparency.

“If we don't hold our public servants accountable, things will just continue to run on a tyrannical type of basis,” Cox said. “We're out here today because of the lack of a legitimate investigation. I personally am not cool with the police investigating themselves. We're out here today to demand an independent investigation, no conflict of interest.”

Geer’s friends Jeff Stewart and Jerry Santos also attended the event.

“It’s encouraging that some number of people are paying attention, encouraging that something organized is taking place and encouraging we got the number out with the conditions outdoors,” said Santos.

“It’s really discouraging that the county continues to be tone-deaf and half-blind,” he continued. “They don’t get it that they’re on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, the wrong side of decency.”

Curtis said the group plans to continue its mission of seeking justice for Geer through email campaigns, attending public meetings and organizing additional events.

“This is the first step in what we're trying to do,” he said. “We need to keep going, keep thinking this isn't the end, it's just the beginning.”

Fairfax must come clean on shooting

Richmond Times Dispatch

Fairfax must come clean on shooting

For nearly a year and a half, the Fairfax County police department has stonewalled inquiries about the shooting death of John Geer. Police responded to a disturbance at Geer’s home in Springfield and talked to Geer at some length while he stood, unarmed, on his own porch. Then an officer shot him in the chest.

Who was the officer? What (if anything) provoked the shooting? Fairfax officials flatly refuse to discuss the case.

Now Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows has ordered the police department to hand over its files to the Geer family, which has filed a lawsuit over the matter. That’s a decent start. But the public has a right to expect more from the county than grudging disclosure in the course of litigation.

For county police to kill an unarmed citizen and then refuse to discuss even the slightest details — let alone tender an explanation — for more than a year is outrageous. That sort of thing might happen in banana republics or Middle Eastern autocracies. It cannot happen here. That Chief Edwin Roessler thinks it ought to shows he is the wrong man for that job.

Mob associate Mario Fortunato gets $300K in settlement after being released from prison for participation in 1994 murder

Fortunato was convicted of murder in aid of racketeering and second degree murder for the killing of loanshark Tino Lombardi, but both verdicts were overturned by appeals courts. Fortunato spent 22 months in prison in total, after facing a life sentence.

BY John Marzulli

Alleged mob guy and bakery co-owner Mario Fortunato settled lawsuit over what he claimed was unjust conviction in 1994 gangland slay.Jesse Ward/for New York Daily NewsAlleged mob guy and bakery co-owner Mario Fortunato settled lawsuit over what he claimed was unjust conviction in 1994 gangland slay.

A Brooklyn baker — and alleged mob associate — is rolling in the cannolis after pocketing $300,000 to settle a lawsuit charging he was unjustly convicted and jailed for participating in a gangland rubout, the Daily News has learned.

Mario Fortunato, a co-owner of the Fortunato Brothers Bakery in Williamsburg, was convicted in federal court and later in state court of the 1994 murder, but both verdicts were later overturned by appeals courts.

Fortunato is getting the dough for the 22 months he spent in state prison after the second degree murder conviction in Brooklyn Supreme Court. He did not file a lawsuit against the feds for the first conviction of murder in aid of racketeering.

A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman confirmed that Fortunato's suit was settled in the Court of Claims on Dec. 19. Fortunato's lawyer Irving Cohen declined to comment.

Fortunato — who federal prosecutors alleged was an associate of the Genovese crime family — was charged with luring loanshark Tino Lombardi to the San Giuseppe Social Club on Graham Ave., where he was whacked by a hit team as the men played an Italian card game called Ladder 40.

Mario Fortunato, defendant charged with murder, outside State Supreme Court in Brooklyn during his trial. Fortunato will get $300K for the 22 months he spent in jaril after the convictions were overturned.Ward, Jesse, Freelance NYDN/Jesse Ward Freelance NYDNMario Fortunato, defendant charged with murder, outside State Supreme Court in Brooklyn during his trial. Fortunato will get $300K for the 22 months he spent in jaril after the convictions were overturned.

Lombardi's cousin, mob associate Michael D'Urso, was also wounded in the ambush and subsequently became a government informant.

D'Urso, who still carries bullet fragments in his neck from the shooting, was astonished by the payday.

“I'm shocked. It's a complete disgrace,” D'Urso told The News on Monday. “I lived, my cousin died. My cousin Tino's wife, his mother, his children, they went through torture. For them to have to see (Fortunato) on the street every day, my heart bleeds for them.”

“Me, I don't give a f--- about him, but for my family it's heartbreaking,” D'Urso said.

Signage at Fortunato brothers bakery, which Mario co-owns.Digital2Signage at Fortunato brothers bakery, which Mario co-owns.

D'Urso wore a hidden recording device in his Rolex watch for the feds to gather devastating evidence against Genovese gangsters, which led to more than 70 arrests including the late crime family boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante.

D'Urso testified at Fortunato's trial that they were targeted because Fortunato's alleged co-conspirator Carmine (Carmine Pizza) Polito wanted to get out of paying a $60,000 debt. Polito's federal conviction was also overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals and when he was retried on state murder charges a jury found him not guilty.

Fortunato was convicted after a bench trial in state court but the verdict was thrown out by a panel of Appellate Division judges who found “the verdict was against the weight of the credible evidence.”

There was bad blood between Fortunato and D'Urso for years, according to D'Urso.

Mario Fortunato accompanied by his wife leaves Brooklyn Federal Court after reversal of his murder convictions.Costanza, SamMario Fortunato accompanied by his wife leaves Brooklyn Federal Court after reversal of his murder convictions.

"Since I was a kid I used to watch Mario abuse my father, he'd belittle him at the card table," D'Urso testified at the second trial. "He'd put a chair next to my father, get on the chair and fart on his head."

D'Urso made two failed attempts to kill Polito in revenge for the shooting.

Fortunato was sentenced in both cases to life in prison before his extraordinary good fortune kicked in and he was freed.

“He got away with murder and now he's won the lottery,” said a source involved in the prosecution.