Fairfax County Police Watch: Cases show progress on issue of police accountability in shootings

By Roger Chesley

The Virginian-Pilot

RARELY ARE police officers charged with a crime when they shoot and kill someone. The Washington Post reported this year that since 2005, only 54 officers nationwide were charged in such killings. That's a tiny fraction of the thousands of people shot fatally by police over that period.

So it's noteworthy that two officers were indicted recently in fatal shootings in Virginia, in confrontations in Norfolk and Fairfax County.

In Norfolk, a grand jury indicted Officer Michael Carlton Edington Jr. in June with voluntary manslaughter in the death of David Latham, a mentally ill man, at his home in June 2014. Latham had a knife. Edington faces a motions hearing Sept. 1, said a spokeswoman with the Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

In Northern Virginia, Adam D. Torres, now fired from the Fairfax County Police Department, was charged this week with second-degree murder in an August 2013 slaying. Torres shot a man who had a holstered gun at his feet.

Experts who study police use of force, especially involving African American and Latino victims, told me it's too early to know whether such charges represent a trend. Investigators and prosecutors have tended to give police the benefit of the doubt - no matter the circumstances.

At least one academic said, however, that scrutiny of police will remain high following cases in Ferguson, Mo.; New York City; Baltimore; North Charleston, S.C.; and elsewhere. The "Black Lives Matter" movement is playing a role, too, in keeping up pressure.

Ronnie Dunn is a professor at Cleveland State University and researches policing, crime and diversity. He cited the prevalence of video footage and cellphone cameras in contributing to indictments.

"Video verifies what blacks have been saying," Dunn said, about officers using excessive force - sometimes in minor crimes.

Whites are also victims of police excesses. Such are the accusations in Fairfax County, where 46-year-old John Geer died in the 2013 standoff following a domestic disturbance call. Witnesses, including other police officers, said Geer had his hands up and wasn't armed when he was shot. The case sparked protests.

News outlets reported that Torres, the former officer charged in the case, collapsed in court Wednesday after being denied bail.

Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, is a former officer and assisted The Washington Post with a lengthy article published in April. "The dirty little secret that police officers sometimes lie on their reports" is taken more seriously now, Stinson told me.

If these developments change things for the better - good. Citizens shouldn't fear their police departments. Nor should officers automatically get off scot-free.

I'll say it again: The men and women in blue have tough jobs, make life-and-death decisions, and often deal with dangerous criminals. Most officers remain professional in thankless, stressful situations.

Some, however, abuse their authority. They let power go to their heads. They cross the line when motorists and other suspects don't show deference or subservience.

That must change.

Police departments have begun looking inward, examining shortcomings and modifying procedures. Since the police-shooting deaths in Norfolk last year of two people with mental illness, including Latham, the Police Department has trained more than 200 officers in a 40-hour crisis intervention course.

I want law enforcers to have the training and skills to do their job.

But they must face the consequences if they kill without justification.

Roger Chesley, 757-446-2329, roger.chesley@pilotonline.com, pilotonline.com/chesley, facebook.com/RogerChesley, @ChesleyRoger on Twitter

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.