By Max Smith | @amaxsmithAugust
18, 2015 7:08 pm
Former Fairfax County police
officer, Adam Torres, was charged with the second-degree murder of John Geer on
Monday, August 17, 2015, following an indictment returned by a special grand
jury convened in the case. (Fairfax...
FAIRFAX, Va. — The former Fairfax
County Police officer accused of murdering John Geer about two years ago is due
in court Wednesday, and the county’s top prosecutor says Adam Torres is not
being offered a plea deal.
In an interview with WTOP,
Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh says he expects the case to go to trial.
Torres shot and killed Geer in
August 2013 after responding to a domestic dispute at Geer’s home.
Geer had been talking to other
officers in the doorway when he was shot, and officers cited safety concerns as
a reason not to immediately enter the home after the shooting.
While records obtained through a
civil case show Torres told investigators that he saw Geer’s hands flinch
toward his waist, other officers and witnesses disputed that.
Torres was indicted Monday by a
special grand jury Morrogh convened to hear the evidence and witnesses in the
case. Torres turned himself in Monday evening, and has been held without bond.
He could request bond at the 10
a.m. hearing Wednesday.
Morrogh blames the long delay in
the case on county police initially refusing to turn over additional
information about Torres, on the advice of the county attorney’s office.
“We were denied access to certain
evidence, which turned out to be pretty critical evidence, by the way,” he
says.
Morrogh says he believes that the
board of supervisors would have had that information turned over if they had
been fully informed about the situation.
“It took way too long. This case
should have been resolved by now, and typically it would have been,” Morrogh
says.
He declined to be more specific
about which particular evidence he believes was so critical.
“You want to have all the facts
before you make a decision. It affects what level of charge you’re going to
charge, whether or not you’re going to charge, and in point of fact I didn’t
have all the facts until about February,” he says.
The special grand jury was
convened this summer. After meeting for a week in July, it handed up the
indictment late on its sixth day in session.
Before prosecutors left the grand
jury room, and opened up the secrecy, Morrogh says the lead detective on the
case called John Geer’s father Don Geer and Geer’s longtime partner Maura
Harrington to let them know about the indictment.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and WTOP
on Facebook.
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