A judge denied bond for
ex-Fairfax officer Adam D. Torres on Wednesday, who is charged with
second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Springfield man in
2013. (WUSA9)
Since the revelation of the police
taping in February, Fairfax police Capt. Edward O’Carroll said, the police have
created a new standard operating procedure that says, “Surreptitious audio
recording of individuals should be avoided unless the purpose directly relates
to allegations of misconduct against employees necessitating that this type of
recording occur.” The procedure notes that it “shall apply in particular but
not exclusive to, disputes with other law enforcement officers, or officers of
the court.”
The taping, by Capt. Darrin Day,
occurred in November 2013, more than two months into the criminal investigation
by Fairfax homicide detectives into the killing of Geer. Previously released
records showed that Morrogh was already aware of possible anger problems with
Torres because he had erupted at one of Morrogh’s assistants in the courthouse
in March 2013.
Morrogh sought any prior internal
affairs files on Torres, to include the courthouse incident, as factors to
consider in whether to charge Torres with a crime. He said police have provided
these files in previous officer-involved shootings without hesi¬ta¬tion.
On Nov. 4, 2013, Lingan called
internal affairs to arrange a pickup of the Torres files. But instead, Day
informed him that the county attorney’s office had advised the police not to
release them. “IA [Internal Affairs] history is protected,” Day said, according
to a transcript prepared for the Geer lawsuit. “Statements to IA should never
be considered for a prosecution.”
This was news to the prosecutors.
“If you won’t turn it over,” Lingan told Day, “we will turn it over to the
feds.”
Ten days later, a meeting was
held with Morrogh, Lingan, Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Day,
Tianti and Deputy County Attorney Karen L. Gibbons. According to Morrogh’s
e-mail, Day asked in the meeting whether Morrogh planned to use the internal
affairs files against Torres. Morrogh said yes. “His reply was, ‘Then you’re
not getting it,’ ” Morrogh
said of Day.
“It is alarming,” Morrogh wrote,
“that he is the one who secretly tape-recorded a prosecutor. . . . It is
even more concerning that Captain Day was secretly recording a prosecutor on
the Geer case before the meeting even occurred. I think some explanation is
warranted.”
In 2013, Roessler and the police
stood fast by their claim that prosecutors were not entitled to an officer’s
prior internal affairs cases, and in January 2014, Morrogh did “turn it over to
the feds,” referring the case to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria. Prosecutors
there subpoenaed the internal affairs files and obtained them, the Justice
Department has said, but then federal officials took no action.
But the Justice Department also
issued a letter saying it did not object to Fairfax releasing information about
the Geer case. So in December 2014, Fairfax Circuit Judge Randy I. Bellows
ordered the police to provide their investigative file to the Geer family in
their civil suit. And in February, he ordered the police to turn over to the
Geers the internal affairs files on Torres. When that happened, internal affairs
Maj. Mike Kline was forced to go to Morrogh’s office and reveal the existence
of Day’s secret tape, because it was being provided to the Geer lawyers.
After Morrogh sent his e-mail, a
police official visited him and said the surreptitious taping had not happened
before and would not happen again. It was solely Day’s decision, Morrogh was
told. “I wanted to know why” Day had done it, Morrogh said, “and never really
got an answer.”
O’Carroll, a former internal
affairs commander, said the taping by Day was “not a function the department
endorses, and now it’s prohibited by policy.” He said no one instructed Day to
tape Lingan, and “we have full faith in the commonwealth’s attorney’s office.”
He said the recording was “frankly not necessary or appropriate” and that
Roessler was not aware of it.
“The captain’s intention in
recording this conversation was in no way conducted with ill will towards the
Deputy Commonwealth, but rather was simply done to replace the taking of
handwritten notes with the recorder,” O’Carroll said in an e-mail.
It was not clear, because of the
heavy redactions, why Morrogh’s e-mail was included in Tianti’s grievance. “Raw
nerve!” County Attorney David P. Bobzien wrote when Tianti forwarded it to him.
Morrogh later tried to arrange a
meeting with Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) to discuss
the police and county attorney’s roadblock, but Bulova said the county
attorneys never told her that. Tianti’s grievance states that The Washington
Post wrote a “story about the failure of the County Attorney’s Office to inform
the Chairman or the Board, which was not true.”
But nearly all of the five pages
surrounding that claim by Tianti are redacted, at Fairfax’s request.
Tom Jackman is a native of
Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.
