2013 Fairfax Police Shooting of
Unarmed Man With Hands Up Leading to New Training, Policies
From Reason .Org
The police's image has to
improve, says a communications subcommittee charged with proposing reforms.
Ed Krayewski|Jul. 24, 2015 12:15
pm
Maura Harrington/via the
Washington PostIn August 2013, a Fairfax county police officer shot and killed
John Geer as the unarmed man stood in the doorway of his home, then waited an
hour to provide medical assistance while his family pleaded for help.
Local authorities refused to
release the name of the officer who shot Geer for 17 months, identifying him as
Adam Torres only after the family filed a wrongful death suit against the
county's police chief. Fairfax County settled for $2.95 million in taxpayer
money, but refused to admit any liability or wrongdoing as part of the
settlement.
The county is still, technically,
deciding whether to charge Torres, as an internal investigation remains open
nearly two years after the killing of Geer. The lawsuit did uncover some new
information about the incident—several witnesses, including four police
officers, contradicted Torres' assertion that Geer was reaching for his
waistband. They say he had his hands near his head.
Local outrage over the slow pace
of the Geer investigation, and a lack of transparency from Fairfax county
police, led the county to set upan "Ad Hoc Police Practices Review
Commission" with five subcommittees to propose reforms: on communications, independent oversight and
investigation, mental health and crisis intervention training, recruitment,
diversity and vetting, and use of force.
A new report from the
communications subcommittee decries the "lip service" paid to
transparency by county police. Via the Washington Post:
"Communications in recent
high-profile use-of-force and critical incident cases were mishandled,
inadequate and untimely" the report states, "leading to loss of
public trust and questions about the legitimacy of police actions…If the department
had policies that fostered real transparency, it's unlikely the controversies
in recent years would have lasted so long and there likely would not have even
been a call to form this commission."
That's a questionable
assertion—Geer was shot while unarmed and standing in the doorway of his home.
Had county police been more forthcoming about what happened and that the
officer who killed Geer would not face any serious consequences, would that
have allayed public outrage? More worryingly, the assertion implies preventing
public outrage is more important than adopting new policies that impose
accountability onto police officers.
The report did have specific
recommendations, including that police should:
release the names of officers
involved in shootings within a week, saying the national average is two days,
and to immediately release all video and audio recordings if a citizen is
killed. The committee also calls on the police to shorten the current 6-20
month timeframe to internally investigate officer-involved shootings and be
responsive to questions from the public and news media.
The Torres investigation has been
open for more nearly 24 months. Some of the transparency issues, the Washington
Post and the subcommittee report note, arise from a state freedom of
information law that provides an exception to records in "criminal
investigative files," which county police use to reject requests for any
police reports. While the Fairfax county government should, theoretically, have
the power to order police to limit their use of that exception, a deputy county
attorney told the subcommittee it should get the state law changed if they want
the practice of rejecting FOIA requests to end. The issue of a lack of
transparency in Fairfax police, especially when deadly force is involved, has
been a long-standing concern.
The Police Executive Research
Forum, an organization of police executives from around the country, had also
been asked to review the county police's use of force policies. The review was
requested before the Geer shooting but didn't start till nearly a year after
Geer was killed. It includes 71 recommendations, such as including
"de-escalation," a "duty to intervene" for cops who see
other cops acting inappropriately, and a "sanctity of life" statement
in the use of force policy. The report also recommends the county not train
recruits on how to fire a gun as the first thing in their training.