Fairfax County Police Watch: Captain gave another reason for taping prosecutor in Geer case, e-mail shows

By Tom Jackman August 21

An e-mail sent by the Fairfax County police captain who secretly taped a conversation with a Fairfax prosecutor handling the police shooting of John Geer in 2013 appears to provide a different explanation for why the taping happened. The transcript of the tape shows that Capt. Darrin Day argued about the law with the chief deputy Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney and was concerned that releasing prior internal affairs files of Officer Adam Torres “could be prejudicial to the officer.”

The tape was provided to the lawyers for Geer’s family in February as part of their civil suit against Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler for the August 29, 2013, killing of Geer. Though Fairfax prosecutors were unable to obtain the internal affairs files for Torres, a Fairfax judge ordered them to be produced in the civil case. The police then had to notify Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh that Day, as an internal affairs captain, had surreptitiously taped a six-minute conversation with chief deputy prosecutor Casey M. Lingan in November 2013 where the police first indicated they would not release the Torres files.

The police continued to refuse to provide the files to the prosecutor, though they had done so in prior police shootings, leading to a year-long delay which was broken by the disclosures in the civil case. A grand jury indicted Torres this week for second-degree murder.

A police spokesman said on Thursday after speaking with Day that he had taped the conversation with Lingan “to replace the taking of handwritten notes with the recorder.” But an e-mail Day sent to internal affairs in January, and obtained by The Post, shows that Day “started the recording shortly after our call started because I did not like the way it was going.”

The spokesman, Capt. Edward O’Carroll, said Friday that he stood by his previous explanation of Day’s reason for taping and that no ill will toward the prosecutors was intended. He said no internal discipline was sought against Day because the taping was not a violation of department policy, though the police have since instituted a standard operating procedure discouraging the practice. (It is legal under Virginia law.)

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.