Fairfax County Releases Statement on Shooting of Springfield Man

By Tim Peterson

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/

It’s been more than 16 months since John Geer of Springfield was shot and killed by a Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) officer. And since the Aug. 29, 2013 shooting, scant information on the incident has been provided by the FCPD or the county Board of Supervisors, such as an explanation of what transpired up to and following the shooting, and the identities of the officers involved. They’ve kept this information from the media, the public and the Geer family, citing an ongoing federal investigation into the death.

That was until Jan 5, when Fairfax County released a 304-word statement regarding the events surrounding Geer’s death. For the first time, the officer who shot Geer was named: PFC Adam Torres, who the statement said, “fired a single shot that struck Geer.”

#“We’ve had policies in place regarding when a police officer’s name and information is released,” Board of Supervisors chairman Sharon Bulova said Monday night. “Usually it’s a matter of weeks. In this particular case it turned out to be an unusual situation that took longer.”

#Police had been called to Geer’s house by his partner and mother of his two daughters Maura Harrington, over a domestic dispute. The statement says officers, “including a trained negotiator,” talked with Geer for over half an hour while he stood in the doorway of his house, arms raised above his head and resting on the doorframe.

#“Geer was reported as having multiple firearms inside the home,” the statement says, “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police, and refused the officers’ requests that he remain outside and speak to them.”

#Torres then shot Geer in the chest when he began lowering his hands.

ACCORDING TO THE STATEMENT a SWAT team entered Geer’s house, after Geer died, and found a loaded, holstered handgun on the stairs by where he had been standing.

 “A large amount of citizens have guns in their home. Does that give them the right to come and shoot you?” said Jeff Stewart of Chantilly, a friend of Geer’s for over 25 years who witnessed the shooting.

 “At the time he was shot he wasn’t bearing any arms. He owned them. Why is it relevant to the release? Does a loaded gun show intent? The burden fell on the police to defuse the situation, let the guy go inside, chill out.”

Geer’s father Don didn’t hear about the county’s release until someone called to say it was happening on television.

 “The press release I felt was very tainted towards the police department,” he said. “It depicted John as being a terrorist or something, had all these guns in the house. He was a hunter. It didn’t sound like that.”

THOUGH THE COUNTY’S STATEMENT refers to a Circuit Court ruling that they “may release some information pertaining to the Aug. 29, 2013, officer-involved shooting of John Geer,” the Dec. 22 opinion from judge Randy Bellows was a court order.

After a Dec. 19 hearing in Fairfax, Bellows quickly turned around a response forcing the county to produce more than 100 documents being sought by lawyer Michael Lieberman in a $12 million civil suit over Geer’s death. According to Lieberman, the county had previously objected to all but six of 127 requests for documents.

 “That’s pretty amazing to have a judge turn around and give you a 12-page opinion over a weekend,” said Lieberman. “He obviously worked on it all weekend, he listened carefully.”

The documents include everything from 911 calls and witness statements to the medical treatment of Geer and blood pattern examination. Bellows is holding off granting or denying production of several documents as they relate to the county’s internal investigation or the federal investigation. He gave the county 30 days to produce all the others.

The FCPD has defended their silence so far through the criminal investigative privilege afforded by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The department declined to comment for this story and the Fairfax County Attorney’s office didn’t respond to an interview request.

In his opinion piece, Bellows wrote: “The entity seeking to assert the criminal investigative file privilege is no longer responsible for any aspect of the criminal investigation and the entity that is now solely responsible for the criminal investigation has made it clear that it has taken no step to discourage the custodian of the criminal investigative files from disclosure of most of the files at issue.”

Bellows referred to correspondence between U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, acknowledging that the case currently sits with the U.S. Department of Justice, not the state’s attorney or the FCPD. Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent formal inquiries to FCPD Chief Edwin Roessler and U.S. Attorney Dana Boente about the case in November 2014. He sent another letter to Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh in December.

Kadzik answered Grassley that the FCPD wasn’t instructed to withhold information about the shooting, only the federal investigation.

Lieberman has continued to criticize the Board of Supervisors, who have authority over the FCPD and allowed the silence from that department to continue.

For Stewart and the Geer family, the continued silence, even with this recent disclosure, has been frustrating and painful.

 “It’s surreal enough to watch your friend get shot,” said Stewart. “It goes to a whole different level when no one’s held accountable.”

 “I can’t figure out why I’ve had to go through this miserable 16 months in order to hear anything being done at all,” said Don Geer. “Closure would be why someone pulled the trigger and killed my son, that’s as much as I can expect at this point in time. A better idea of why did it happen.”

“We need to be transparent and we haven’t been,” he said in a recent interview. “The county attorney is supposed to provide advice, we make decisions. I think we’ve been following overly protective legal advice instead of making the right decision in this case, is really what it boils down to.”

Lieberman said he sees this action by the county as “preemptive damage control.” He continued, “The only positive thing I take out of it is some claim they’re finally going to change the policies.”

Bulova admitted the Board of Supervisors, FCPD and County Attorney’s policies on information sharing all need to be examined. "In retrospect,” she said, “our policies need to be changed to provide information sooner if there is a delay like this.”

She also addressed the possibility of revisiting creating a citizen’s police advisory council.

 “At least it’s getting their attention,” Geer said. “The idea of the police investigating the police just doesn’t work. That’s all there is to it.”

Lieberman is optimistic that future hearings will help produce more documents, and for now at least some answers to 16-month-old questions are coming forward.

 “The nightmare of John’s shooting isn’t ever going to end,” he said, “but the nightmare of what the county’s done, at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel for getting over that part.”

Fairfax Cops Block Geer Killing Investigations

By John Lovaas/Reston Impact Producer/Host

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/

#Finally some of the smoke is clearing. Sixteen months after unarmed John Geer was killed standing in his doorway by an unidentified Fairfax County Police officer we are getting an explanation of the wall of silence surrounding his death. In response to an inquiry by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney (prosecutor) Raymond Morrogh revealed why he failed to complete his investigation into Mr. Geer’s killing and took the unusual step of passing the case to the U.S. Attorney (U.S. Justice Dept.) a year ago. The Fairfax prosecutor typically works closely with police investigators looking into possible abuse or criminal acts by police officers. He depends on their detective work in deciding whether to recommend charges or empanel a grand jury (as in Ferguson, Mo. or New York City) to seek indictment. In the case of John Geer’s death, Mr. Morrogh told Senator Grassley that “the decision by the Chief of Police…to withhold requested materials effectively prevented me from completing the investigation and rendering a decision.” Morrogh said that Chief Roessler, who is appointed by and in theory accountable to Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, was supported by County Attorney David Bobzien, also a subordinate of the Chairman and Board of Supervisors in refusing to hand over evidence. Furthermore, Roessler also refused to cooperate in providing evidence requested by the Justice Department. Finally, the Justice Department took the County and Police to court, and a judge ordered Fairfax County Police to provide the evidence sought. Only now, under court order, have the cops agreed to cooperate to some extent with the U.S. Attorney’s investigation. We shall see.

#What on earth is going on here? Why have we heard nothing from the people who the Police Chief works for—Fairfax Board Chairman Sharon Bulova and the nine silent District Supervisors? On Fairfax County’s organization chart, it is clear that the Police Department--just like the Departments of Community Services, Planning and Zoning, and Information Technology, for example—reports to, takes direction from and has its policies set by the Chairman and Board of Supervisors. Department chiefs can also be removed by the Board.

#Why have Bulova and the Board not directed FCPD to drop the shroud of secrecy so inappropriate in an open society, and to cooperate fully with the Commonwealth Attorney and Justice Department? Indeed, who is in charge?

#Perhaps Chairman Bulova and the Supes have not noticed the growing agitation here and around the USA about the lack of accountability of police forces often resembling military units. In view of the Geer killing and several others here under questionable circumstances—including Dr. Salvatore Culosi, Randal Leroy Collins, David Masters, Hailu Brooks—and FCPD’s 72-year history of no officer ever being charged, Fairfax County may be the impunity capitol of the country. Other jurisdictions the size of Fairfax County have created independent citizen oversight panels to assure transparency and open communication on matters of police abuse and use of lethal force. It is time this County did so as well. Tragically, Fairfax County’s lack of accountability encourages a small number of trigger-happy bad actors within the force to abuse their power, and lose for all the confidence of those they are supposed to protect.

Seven unanswered questions in the Fairfax police shooting death of John Geer

By Tom Jackman

The Washington Post

After Fairfax County on Monday decided to release the name of the officer involved in the fatal shooting of John Geer in 2013, and make the new allegation that Geer had threatened police with a gun, there remain a number of crucial unanswered questions in the case. Here are our top seven. You can add yours in the comments:

1) Why did Officer Adam Torres fire one shot at close range and kill John Geer?

After 16 months of silence, the Fairfax police identified a 31-year-old eight-year veteran from the West Springfield patrol station as the shooter, but would not say why he fired. Did Torres think that Geer, after between 30 and 50 minutes of discussion, was reaching for a gun when he began to lower his hands from the top of the storm door? Witnesses say Geer’s hands had only reached eye level when Torres fired. When officers feel threatened, they are trained to fire more than one time. Other officers were also on scene, with weapons aimed at Geer, but they did not fire. Was the shot intentional, or an accident? Did Geer say something that caused Torres to feel threatened?

2) When will a decision be made about whether to charge Torres with a crime?

The case is now in the hands of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, which is not known for prompt decisions (see the Oscar Grant case in Oakland from 2009, or the Trayvon Martin case from 2012). The investigation, initially conducted by the Fairfax police homicide section and reviewed by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh, was shifted to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria in January 2014 after Morrogh ran into roadblocks obtaining internal affairs information from the Fairfax police, Morrogh has said. The FBI and Justice Department lawyers then investigated, subpoenaed the same internal affairs information Morrogh sought, then passed the case to Main Justice in November for a ruling.

The difference between the Geer case and Grant, Martin, Michael Brown and others is that local prosecutors and juries made decisions on those cases before the feds got involved. This time, the feds are the first ones to make a call. And if they decide there was no civil rights violation — defined as a government entity willfully denying a citizen their rights — does the case then return to Fairfax prosecutor Morrogh for a decision on whether state law was violated? How long would all this take?

3) What internal affairs files were the Fairfax and federal prosecutors seeking in this case?

This has apparently been a major sticking point for investigators, and several officials familiar with the case said that both Morrogh and the federal prosecutors were seeking information not on the shooter, Torres, but on one of the police witnesses. The issue reportedly is whether the witness has had prior problems with truthfulness. Fairfax prosecutors are careful not to use witnesses whose truthfulness has been challenged in court, because it allows defense attorneys to attack their testimony. Did a police witness in the Geer case offer corroborating testimony for Torres, or conflicting? This is also complicated by the legal precedent that statements given by officers in internal investigations, mandatorily, cannot be used against them in criminal cases, where they are not required to testify. Morrogh reportedly was not seeking to prosecute anyone based on the prior cases, but Fairfax County attorneys still resisted.

4) How will Fairfax County proceed in the civil lawsuit filed by Geer’s family?

Frustrated after a year of silence, Geer’s family sued Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. and the county in September, seeking answers. Fairfax resisted providing any pre-trial discovery, saying the case was still under federal investigation. Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows last month ordered Fairfax to turn over everything that was obtained before the case went to the feds in January 2014 and gave them 30 days to do so. After two weeks, Fairfax has not yet done so. In the last police shooting to go to civil court, the 2006 killing of unarmed optometrist Salvatore Culosi, Fairfax County fought Culosi’s lawyers for four years in federal court before finally agreeing to pay a $2 million settlement on the eve of trial. Will Fairfax again take a hardball approach to the family of a man shot dead by one of their officers?

5) When will Fairfax County provide a detailed timeline of what happened that day?

After 16 months, the Fairfax police for the first time revealed not only Torres’s name, but a new claim that Geer was “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police.” The police also stated that “a trained negotiator” was involved and tried to get Geer to emerge from his townhouse, though Geer was not holding any hostages and was not known to be suspected of any crimes. Geer’s father said he was told by police that Geer was unarmed, and he does not appear armed in a photo taken shortly before the shooting, though a holstered, loaded handgun was found a few feet from the doorway. The Geer family’s lawyer, Michael Lieberman, said he had never heard any report about Geer displaying a gun or that a negotiator was involved. What other details do Fairfax authorities have about the case, including their decision to wait an hour before rendering aid to the mortally wounded Geer?

6) If the case languishes at the federal level, will Sen. Charles Grassley get involved again?

Grassley (R-Iowa) is now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the case sat quietly within the Justice Department, he fired off letters to the Fairfax police chief, the U.S. attorney and the Fairfax prosecutor, asking what was causing the delay. The responses to his questions made it clear that no one was silencing the Fairfax police, clearing the way for Judge Bellows to order them to release information to the family in the civil case. Will he seek more information if the case goes quiet again?

7) Why have Fairfax police not previously stated that Geer was “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police”?

When Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson’s full explanation of why he shot Michael Brown was made publicly available, it provided a previously missing component to the discussion of why Brown was killed. Wilson’s version of events came less than four months after the shooting, but well after the civil unrest it caused. In Fairfax, there has been no civil unrest, and, until Monday, very little information.

Cops temper tantrum

Fairfax County identifies police officer Adam Torres as shooter of John Geer

By Tom Jackman, Washington Post.

 

Sixteen months after a Fairfax County police officer shot and killed a Springfield man, officials for the first time Monday identified the officer as Adam D. Torres, and made a new claim that the man had a loaded gun nearby and threatened to use it.

The longtime partner of John B. Geer, 46, had called police on Aug. 29, 2013, after she told him she was leaving him and he responded by throwing her belongings out of their house. In a statement released Monday, police said they were told Geer not only had “multiple firearms” inside the townhouse but also that he was “displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police.” That statement contradicts previous witness accounts that Geer was unarmed when he was shot.

The attorney for Geer’s family, Michael Lieberman, strongly disputed the claim that Geer displayed a gun and threatened to use it. “I’ve never heard of him displaying any firearm at the police and I have no reason to believe he did,” Lieberman said. Don Geer, John Geer’s father, said he was told by police that his son was unarmed when he was shot.

Fairfax police declined to answer any questions about the statement or clarify when Geer displayed or threatened to use a gun. The handgun found inside the house was loaded and holstered, the statement said.

Fairfax officials did not notify Geer’s family or their lawyers that they planned to release the officer’s name and new details about the case, Lieberman said.

The statement also said that Geer refused officers’ requests to stay outside and speak with them, and that “a trained negotiator” tried to resolve the confrontation. But when Geer began lowering his hands from the top of his storm door after more than 30 minutes of discussions, “PFC Adam Torres fired a single shot that struck Geer.”

The statement said “Geer did not answer the officers’ calls and offers of medical aid.” Police waited for an hour — and for the arrival of a SWAT team and a hostage rescue vehicle — before entering Geer’s home, where he was found dead.

Fairfax said that “a loaded, holstered firearm was recovered on the landing of the stairs to Geer’s left where he had stood in the doorway and seven more firearms were recovered inside the home.”

Lieberman said he had never heard of a negotiator speaking with Geer and that the seven other guns in the house were in a locked safe.

Police said Torres is an eight-year veteran of the department and assigned as a patrol officer to the West Springfield district, but they declined to release his age. He has been on administrative duties since the shooting.

Torres could not be immediately located for comment. He has not been involved previously in any fatal police shootings in Fairfax.

The investigation of whether Torres should be charged with a crime was handled for four months by the Fairfax commonwealth’s attorney, who transferred the case in January 2014 to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria. Federal officials are considering whether to file civil rights charges in the case, but Fairfax Board Chairman Sharon Bulova said Monday she had no indication when that might be.

County officials said they felt the information release was appropriate after a Fairfax judge in the Geer family’s civil lawsuit against Fairfax last month ordered a vast amount of pretrial discovery to be released to the family. Before that, the police had refused to disclose Torres’s name or anything about him, or any details about why Torres might have shot Geer.

Bulova said county officials were frustrated by their inability to release information, but abided by policies that had worked in previous police shootings: to wait for a ruling on whether a crime was committed before discussing a case. But she said after 16 months, and the ruling in the civil case by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows, she met Monday with Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. and both felt the time was right to release the information.

Bulova said the timing was unrelated to a planned protest outside the Fairfax police headquarters Thursday by a group called Justice for John Geer, which recently formed to demand information about the shooting.

“This has just been an unusual situation,” Bulova said. “It was bumped up to the federal level for, I think, multiple reasons. And we were sort of left in limbo.”

Bulova said she did not know when the county’s lawyers would comply with Bellows’s order to release documents and other evidence to Geer’s family, but she said Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh did not object to the release. Bellows gave the county 30 days to provide the information.

Lieberman also said he did not know how or when he would receive the information. He said Monday’s statement appeared to be “damage control. To try to show they have some sense of transparency. A little late, I would say.”

Tom Jackman is a native of Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.

I don’t believe this police report and I do believe that in the end, the cops will get away with this one too.

 No one on the scene saw or heard John Geer speaking to a neither “trained negotiator” nor have the cops provided any photographs or film recording the trained negotiator, or provide the negotiators name.

Where are the photographs of the supposed holstered gun in the hallway? Are their two signed reports from two different cops declaring that they both found the gun in the hallway?   

 The police report leaves out the fact that the cops didn’t enter the property for almost an hour after they shot Geer and as a result, he bled to death and that the other weapons found on the property where under lock and key.

In the end, none of that matters. They’ll get away with this one too and nothing will change.    

Statement from Fairfax County Police:

The Fairfax County Police Department reports that the Circuit Court of Fairfax County has determined that the department may release some information pertaining to the August 29, 2013, officer-involved shooting of John Geer, even while the investigations into the incident remain ongoing.

On August 29, 2013, Fairfax County police officers responded to a call by Geer's domestic partner reporting a domestic dispute with Geer. Officers spoke to the complainant and Geer outside their residence. Geer was reported as having multiple firearms inside the home, displaying a firearm that he threatened to use against the police, and refused the officers' requests that he remain outside and speak to them. Officers, including a trained negotiator, attempted to peaceably resolve the situation. They spoke with Geer for more than thirty minutes as he stood in the doorway of his home.

When Geer began lowering his hands at one point during the negotiations, PFC Adam Torres fired a single shot that struck Geer. Geer immediately retreated inside the home and shut the front door. Geer did not answer the officers' calls and offers of medical aid. A SWAT Team and a hostage rescue vehicle were used to effectuate a safe approach and entry into the home. Once inside, the SWAT officers, who were accompanied by a tactical paramedic, found Geer deceased. A loaded, holstered firearm was recovered on the landing of the stairs to Geer's left where he had stood in the doorway and seven more firearms were recovered inside the home.

This matter is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice and an internal, administrative investigation by the Police Department. Officer Torres, who has been employed by the Police Department for eight years, was placed on administrative duty following the incident and remains so pending the outcome of the criminal and administrative investigations.
Chairman Sharon Bulova's Statement

On behalf of the Board of Supervisors, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the family and friends of John Geer. Any untimely death is a tragedy, and our Board continues to be extremely frustrated and disappointed with the amount of time it has taken for this investigation to come to a resolution.

I am pleased that the information and details we are releasing today are now available to the public. This breaks the logjam that has prevented the sharing of information that the public and the Geer family have been requesting. In the Geer case, there are three separate investigations and a civil lawsuit. The County has policies in place to avoid interfering with and jeopardizing open criminal and civil cases. The court order resolves staff concerns regarding what could and could not be shared.

This is an unusual and complicated situation for Fairfax County. Our current policies regarding a police involved shooting do not address the unique situation where the Commonwealth's Attorney refers a case to federal investigators. Our Board will thoroughly review these policies to make sure we are consistently responsive and transparent with regard to police incidents and public safety concerns.

In Fairfax County, we have worked very hard to build trust within the community, especially with the Police Department, and our policies must reflect this.

Statistically, Fairfax County is the safest jurisdiction of its size in the United States and I am very proud of our public safety professionals who help to make that happen. In Fairfax County, our police officers enjoy a strong and positive partnership with the community they serve and protect. Each of our eight Police Districts has a Citizens Advisory Committee that meets regularly. At these meetings, residents of the area have the opportunity to learn of safety issues in their community and share information that is of concern to them. Additionally, the County's Neighborhood Watch programs operate with strong support from and collaboration with our Police Department. All of our Fairfax County high schools and middle schools benefit from specifically trained School Resource Officers.

As Chairman, I have made it a point to ride throughout the County with the Police Chief on National Night Out and I can tell you that the community's trust and appreciation of our police officers is enormous. Most recently, Chief Roessler established a Police Department Diversity Council, consisting of representatives of our County's minority populations, to help ensure law enforcement's sensitivity to the many cultural differences that exist within our community.

The unique positive relationship that our Police Department has established with the community they serve is significant. This has helped to foster trust of public safety and is a major factor in keeping our crime rate extraordinarily low. While this has been a unique and complicated set of circumstances, our Board is committed to making sure Fairfax County policies will not result in delays should similar situations arise in the future.

Fairfax County has provided all information and materials requested in order for these investigations to move forward. We join with the Geer family and the community in urging a fair and timely resolution.

Raise the hiring IQ for cops: Off-duty Erlanger police officer accidentally shoots self in Over-the-Rhine

WCPO Staff

CINCINNATI - CINCINNATI -- An off-duty police officer from Erlanger, Kentucky was accidentally shot in Over-the-Rhine on Saturday when his weapon discharged in an elevator. The incident happened about 8:30 p.m. at the Mercer Commons Parking Garage near the intersection of Vine and Mercer streets. Erlanger police officer Darryl Jouett had just had dinner and was heading back to his car with his wife when his duty-issue .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun discharged inside the elevator. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck him in the stomach, according to Capt. Mike John "It's very unusual. Obviously you have somebody that's used to handling firearms," John said. "It's very unusual to see somebody discharge a firearm, accidentally, in a confined space like that. It's very unusual."  The next day, Erlanger police said Jouett went to adjust his belt when the service weapon fired in its holster. It's unclear if he had the safety on.

10 to o one he gets away with it

Former Tequesta police chief says he accidentally shot wife in Ga., investigators say

By Marisa Gottesman and Adam Sacasa

Cops say former Delray police deputy chief shot his wife in Georgia

An Atlanta-area police chief who previously helped lead two agencies in Palm Beach County says he accidentally shot his wife early New Year's Day inside their Georgia home.

William McCollom, the Peachtree City, Ga., police chief, had served as a major at Delray Beach Police Department until 2006, and then served as chief of the Tequesta Police Department until 2010.

y in Georgia, McCollom called 911 to report accidentally shooting his wife, Margaret, while moving a handgun that was in their bed inside the couple's bedroom, Peachtree City Police Lt. Mark Brown said.

McCollom's wife was flown to Atlanta Medical Center, where she was in critical condition.

A 911 dispatcher asked McCollom, "Who shot her?"

"Me," McCollom said. "The gun was in the bed, I went to move it, and I put it to the side and it went off."

McCollom's wife can be heard crying in the background. He told the dispatcher he shot her in the back.

"Oh my God," the police chief said. "How the hell did this happen?"

McCollom has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation and an internal review. He has not been charged with any crimes.

Longtime Delray Beach residents say they were surprised to hear McCollom, their former Delray deputy chief, shot his wife.

"People are praying for his wife and also praying for a plausible explanation," said former Delray Mayor Jeff Perlman. "There is a lot of emotion. There is a lot of disbelief and concern."

Perlman was mayor when McCollom worked for Delray's police force until he left the city.

"He was actually a major, but they called him a deputy chief," Perlman said. "He was No. 2."

But Perlman remembers McCollom from years before Perlman became an elected official in 2000. When Perlman was a newspaper reporter, he said, McCollom worked as a Delray canine officer.

"I did stories on the canine unit," Perlman said. "I knew him early in his career and watched him move up the ladder."

Perlman said McCollom wasn't about just law and order. He said he promoted community policing, which meant getting out of the patrol car and interacting with residents to help solve problems.

Perlman said McCollom encouraged his fellow officers to attend homeowners' association meetings and develop relationships with residents.

"He was a deep-thinking kind of guy," Perlman said. "He was really interested in trying to break the cycle of poverty and crime in the Northwest Southwest neighborhood."

He said McCollom was instrumental in creating a program to help at-risk youth learn how to fix cars after he saw a pattern of kids stealing cars. Perlman said the program ran for 10 years.

Perlman said he turned to McCollom for advice during the seven years when he was in office. "He was a huge help to me," Perlman said. "He was on the top of the list of people I relied on and really looked up to."

In Georgia, investigators would not discuss what led McCollom to open fire. The police turned the criminal probe over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the prosecutor's office there.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Sherry Lang said initial reports suggested that McCollom shot his wife twice, but later information revealed she was shot once. Authorities said the police chief fired his department-issued firearm, a 9-mm Glock handgun.

During McCollom's 911 call, he told the dispatcher he and his wife were asleep when the gun went off. He also identifies himself as police chief of Peachtree City during the phone call.

"He is fully cooperating at this point, and he has been interviewed," said Lang, who declined to comment on what McCollom told investigators.

Want to cut down on police brutality? Make police pay for their own misbehavior. It would be good for taxpayers — and justice

By Bonnie Kristian | December 29, 2014

Eric Garner's family plans to sue the New York Police Department for $75 million. Tamir Rice's parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Michael Brown's family may likewise launch a civil suit against the St. Louis police.

No matter the outcome of these three legal actions, they're already guaranteed to have at least one thing in common: Any settlement award would be overwhelmingly (if not completely) paid by taxpayers, while the police officers responsible for the deaths of Garner, Rice, and Brown would be mostly or entirely let off the financial hook.

This phenomenon is not unique to these cases or locales. Indeed, it is common practice for the monetary costs of suits alleging police misconduct — however grave — to be shifted away from the officers responsible.

One study from June 2014 calculated that taxpayers picked up the tab for no less than 99.98 percent of the $730 million paid to victims of civil rights violations by 44 of the largest police departments from 2006 to 2011. New York City is relatively unusual in that it requires "officers to contribute small amounts when officers have been found to be acting outside of policy." Elsewhere, even when the police departments involved agreed with the courts' decisions and fired or otherwise punished the cops in question, officers' bank accounts remain untouched.

In midsize and smaller cities, the same study noted, officers "never contributed to settlements or judgments in lawsuits brought against them." In fact, in jurisdictions where it is illegal to shield police from paying (or at least contributing to) their own settlement costs, many local governments simply ignore the law and financially shield cops anyway.

Proponents of this system argue, as the Supreme Court did in Forrester v. White (1988), that "the threat of personal liability for damages can inhibit government officials in the proper performance of their duties." Police who are preoccupied with protecting their pocketbooks may be overly cautious while pursuing criminals, the reasoning goes, so it's important to protect them from frivolous lawsuits which could ruin them financially.

But in practice, police already exist as a special legal class, enjoying many protections not afforded to the rest of us. Cops are significantly less like to be indicted or convicted than regular citizens, and they are often afforded an extra measure of privacy in any tangle with the justice system. In Chicago specifically, police officers accused of the worst types of abuse, like rape and excessive force, face a one in 500 chance of experiencing any consequences more serious than a one-week suspension.

And in the meantime, the costs of these settlement payments quickly pile up, as victims and their families in the more shocking or widely publicized cases may successfully sue for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. New York City taxpayers paid out some $735 million for police misconduct settlements in 2012 alone, and the NYPD expects annual settlement spending to top $800 million by 2016.

Cleveland recently agreed to pay $3 million to the families of two men who were killed by police. In August, L.A. settled the death of an unarmed veteran for $5 million. By comparison, Denver has gotten off easy, spending not quite $11 million on police settlements involving brutality or civil rights violations in the last decade.

But it gets worse. Taxpayers "in some cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, are paying three times for officers who repeatedly commit abuses: once to cover their salaries while they commit abuses; next to pay settlements or civil jury awards against officers; and a third time through payments into police 'defense' funds provided by the cities," according to research from Human Rights Watch. Suffice it to say taxpayers aren't getting a good deal.

Of course, some suits do manage to make officers pay. This typically requires a special demand by the victims or their families in pursuit of accountability, and it frequently results in a far smaller settlement. "[These victims] want an acknowledgment that the police did them wrong or hurt them," says Craig Futterman, a professor at University of Chicago Law. "That's why some of these settlements are for such small amounts."

Maybe more important than the size of the award, however, is the incentive provided by mandating police contribution to settlements.

While requiring cops to wear body cameras seems like a necessary step toward accountability post-Ferguson, the lack of indictment for Eric Garner's death (which was caught on camera) suggests video alone may not do the trick. Cynical though it might sound, making police officers more financially responsible for their behavior could be a stronger incentive for justice — not to mention a boon to taxpayers now paying thrice over for systemic police brutality.

With a fixed requirement of, say, 50 percent officer contribution, settlement awards would be far lower to ensure they could be collected. Yet what these awards might lose in size they would gain in meaning, giving the victim and his family a greater sense of justice.

Even more important, however, is to avoid instances of police brutality in the first place. And if monetary penalties can effectively (and literally) raise the cost of police engaging in abusive behavior, this reform is definitely worth a try.

Anti-brutality activists aim to ‘evict’ St. Louis police from headquarters

Anti-police violence movement 'taking it up a notch,' organizers say; St. Louis cops respond with pepper spray, arrests

by Massoud Hayoun

Scores of protesters at the helm of the ongoing nationwide movement against police violence stormed the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Wednesday, aiming to “evict” officers they accused of “perpetrating police brutality on our citizenry.”

Five of the roughly 25 demonstrators who linked arms in the lobby of the police department were arrested in the headquarters, the St. Louis Police Department told Al Jazeera. Police pepper-sprayed and forced other protesters off the premises.

The detainees — four women and one man — were charged with “trespassing and peace disturbance,” said Leah K. Freeman, the department's spokeswoman.  The man was charged with “assault 3rd [degree] for assaulting a City Marshall inside the lobby of police headquarters.”

Among the protesters was a white couple who pretended to open an account at the St. Louis Police Credit Union, located inside the building. The arrested included a white college student, a young Mexican-American man, one black woman and a Palestinian-American mother in her 50s. Organizers said the detained activists — like the rest of the demonstrators who stormed police headquarters — were peaceful and did not conduct themselves differently from their fellow activists.

“We got a lot of people in there because we didn’t look like what they think protesters look like,” said Elizabeth Vega, 48, one of the organizers, explaining that the police were likely expecting more black demonstrators. Originally from Mexico, Vega has lived in the St. Louis area for 14 years.

Protesters who were driven outside erected a makeshift “barricade” at the headquarters’ main entrance, organizers said. By mid-afternoon local time, that barrier separated a small line of police from the demonstrators, whose ranks swelled to 75 from the original 25. Another 18, including 12 females and 6 males, "were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic" outside the station, Freeman said. One was charged with "interfering with an officer" after allegedly hurling a projectile at the police.

“We specifically chose this date, because we knew it would be a skeleton crew,” said one of the protesters, Jessie Sandoval, 41, of the police being short-staffed on New Years eve. Sandoval travelled to Ferguson, Missouri in August to protest police brutality after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, on Aug. 9, sparking an outcry against the policing of communities of color across the country.

Protests have spread from the St. Louis area across the nation since Brown’s killing, one of several police killings of black men this year that focused international scrutiny on the use of lethal force as a law enforcement tactic.

Among a list of demands the protesters delivered Wednesday to police before officers arrested and pepper sprayed protesters was a meeting with police officials and the immediate dismissal of white officers they identify as having unjustly killed young black men. VonDerrit D. Myers Jr., 18, was reportedly brandishing a jammed gun in a standoff with white police officer Jason H. Flanery when Flanery shot and killed him in St. Louis. People at Wednesday’s protest cite Flanery’s online diatribes against gays and Muslims as a sign of his discriminatory policing.

Kajieme Powell, 25, was killed by St. Louis police on Aug. 19. The police officer told the media at the time that the officer had followed protocol and killed him in self-defense, but they have yet to reveal the name of the officer involved in the incident.

“There are too many young people getting shot by police. We’re just taking back” the police department, Vega said.

“We’ve not been listened to. So we’re just taking it up a notch and doing traditional acts of disobedience.”

Witness who filmed Delray melee describes chaotic scene

Cory Provost, a witness of the Delray Beach melee says the situation started over an argument with police

By Kate Jacobson 

A witness to a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday said the situation became heated when police officers approached a birthday party at a house in the Southwest neighborhood..

It lead to a 50-plus person melee that included a group of people forming a human shield to keep officers from a man who police wanted to detain.

Raw video of a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday, after Officers say they smelled marijuana in the area.

Cory Provost, a New York City resident who is visiting Delray Beach over the holidays, said about 30 people were at a birthday party on the corner of Southwest Eighth Avenue and Southwest Third Court just after 7:30 p.m. when an unmarked police car pulled up to the house.

He said two officers wearing uniforms got out of the car, walked onto the lawn and accused the partygoers of smoking marijuana. Provost said that wasn't true.

"There was a lot of shouting back and forth," he said. "The residents were asking the cops to leave the yard and they didn't do so."

Part of the exchange was caught on camera, which Provost uploaded to his YouTube channel.

Police Sgt. Nicole Guerriero late Wednesday said the footage doesn't show the entire incident. And because only a portion is being shown, police said, it's not a fully accurate depiction of what happened.

Officers smelled marijuana in the area, saw someone who they thought was smoking and followed him into the yard, Guerriero said Tuesday. In an arrest report, officers said the man they saw was a known drug user with whom they've had contact in the past.

Provost said the situation did get out of hand — for both the partygoers and the police. He said at first, people formed a semi-circle around police questioning them as to why they were there. When police started yelling at them, he said, the people became more agitated and began shuffling around.

"Then, a little later on, something was thrown," he said. "You heard a glass crack, I think a bottle or something was thrown, and I believe it hit the police vehicle."

Guerriero said the police vehicle's windshield was damaged in the skirmish.

In the arrest report, police said they were patrolling the area because it is an area known for high drug use.

Guerriero said Tuesday the officers were afraid of what could happen in the situation and called for backup. There were four officers and an estimated group of 70 people involved by the end of the scuffle, she said. It lasted for more than an hour.

Provost said police should've tried to calm down the group in this situation. When the partygoers questioned why the police were on private property, Provost said they should've gotten answers, not yelling from the police.

"There's a lot of rhetoric going around that if you question police you're anti-police, and I don't think that's the case," he said. "I think we want to have police approach situations with a little more compassion and respect because we, too, are human beings. If there was more trust in the community of our police, a lot of these situations wouldn't happen."

Is the NYPD Engaged in a Massive Temper Tantrum, Refusing to Write Tickets As Payback Against the Mayor?

by Nick Chiles

Are NYPD officers in Brooklyn in the midst of a massive temper tantrum to show their displeasure with Mayor Bill de Blasio?

Officers in the two precincts connected to murdered Officers Winjian Liu and Rafael Ramos have virtually stopped issuing tickets, according to a story in the New York Daily News, basically conducting an enormous work stoppage.

The precincts are the 84th, where Liu and Ramos worked, and the 79th, where they were murdered. The News said just one summons was issued in the 84th in the seek since they were killed. There were no summonses written in the 79th. In the previous week leading up to their death, the precincts issued a total of 626 parking, moving and criminal summonses.

In fact, the entire force of 34,000 cops appears to be engaged in the work stoppage, according to News figures. Across the entire city, just 2,128 summons were issued in the past week, compared to 26,512 for the previous week.

Arrests also have plummeted—115 in the past week for drugs, compared to 523 the previous week. Transit arrests have dropped from 662 to 20 and housing arrests fell from 258 to 65.

“Guys are on edge,” an unidentified police supervisor told the newspaper. “They’re still angry at the mayor and they’re not about to do anything they don’t absolutely have to do.”

If the numbers are telling a true story, it is a massive case of insubordination, affecting city revenue and ultimately affecting all city residents. It is, in effect, a paid strike—officers receiving their salaries without doing the jobs they are paid for.

The police force is demonstrating its extreme disrespect for the mayor of the city, showing him that he dare not express sympathy for the darker residents in their midst—even if some of those darker residents happen to be his children.

The city has not seen this level of disrespect since the mayoralty of David Dinkins, the city’s first African-American mayor, who was often at odds with the force in the 1990s after controversial shootings when he would visit the families of victims—taking sides with the enemy, in the eyes of many police officers.

It is also showing disrespect to city residents, who have every right to expect their police force to do its job. If the force feels such little compunction about exhibiting such massive levels of misbehavior, one wonders what kind of message they are getting from the police commissioner. He said he didn’t approve of the turning of their backs on the mayor during Ramos’ funeral. What does he think about them forgetting that they are police officers for the past two weeks?

Perhaps there is a silver lining in a city where the force stopped and frisked millions of Black and Hispanic males over the course of a decade: Black and brown boys could finally walk the streets in a small measure of peace.