By
Tom Jackman January 31 at 6:52 PM
John
B. Geer stood with his hands on top of the storm door of his Springfield, Va.,
townhouse and calmly said to four Fairfax County police officers with guns
pointed at him: “I don’t want anybody to get shot . . . .
And I don’t wanna get shot, ’cause I don’t want to die today.”
But
as one officer tried to ease Geer through the standoff, another officer, Adam
D. Torres, shot and killed Geer from 17 feet away, telling investigators that
he saw Geer move his hands to his waist and thought he might be reaching for a
weapon, according to newly released documents from the county.
The
other three officers, and a lieutenant watching from a distance, said they saw
no such thing, the documents show.
How
and why Geer died that afternoon in August 2013 after police responded to a
domestic dispute at his home have remained a mystery, as police and prosecutors
have declined to comment on the case for 17 months. But Friday night, under a
court order obtained by lawyers for the Geer family, Fairfax released more than
11,000 pages of documents that shed new light on the police shooting.
The
other officers contradicted Torres’s story, all agreeing that Geer had his
hands above his shoulders, did not move them to his waist and was unarmed when
he was shot.
The
documents also show that Torres was involved in an argument with his wife in
the 16 minutes leading up to his arrival at Geer’s home that may have caused
him to miss key facts about Geer and the situation at the townhouse. He also
did not issue a warning to Geer before he pulled the trigger.
“When
the shot happened, his hands were up,” Officer Rodney Barnes, who had been
talking to Geer at the moment of the shooting, told investigators that evening.
“I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I
didn’t see what he saw.”
The
documents, which include police investigative reports, transcripts, timelines,
photos and dispatcher audiotapes, indicate that Torres said he considered Geer
“a credible threat,” because he had placed a holstered gun at his feet at the
beginning of the standoff. But the other three officers told investigators that
they never considered firing at Geer.
“It’s
not good,” Officer David Parker, who was crouching 15 feet behind Torres, told
investigators. “He killed that guy and he didn’t have to.”
But
Torres said he thought Geer could have had another weapon hidden at his waist.
“It was not accidental,” Torres told investigators. “No, it was justified. I
have no doubt about that at all. I don’t feel sorry for shooting the guy at
all.”
The
files also reveal for the first time why the Fairfax prosecutor shifted the
case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria: an internal affairs
investigation into a loud, angry “meltdown” Torres had in the Fairfax County
Courthouse. In that incident, five months before the Geer shooting, Torres
repeatedly cursed at an assistant county prosecutor and stormed out of the
courthouse, according to the prosecutor’s statement included in the released
documents.
But
county police refused to make the internal affairs file available to Fairfax
Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh. A frustrated Morrogh has said he
passed the investigation to the Justice Department because he was unable to get
anywhere with the Fairfax police department.
Mike
Lieberman, an attorney for the Geer family, said: “If this was a similar
situation involving two ordinary citizens, there is little doubt that any
individual who shot an unarmed man who was holding his hands up in the air and
claiming that he did not want to hurt anyone would have been arrested and
charged.
“Within
days of the shooting, the police department, at the highest levels, knew of the
gross discrepancies between Officer Torres’s version of the events and the
accounts provided by every other eyewitness.”
Torres
has not spoken publicly since the shooting, and he did not return e-mail and
phone messages Friday. His lawyer, John Carroll, also did not return messages.
Sharon
Bulova, the chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on
the case.
Geer’s
father, Don Geer, also witnessed the shooting from behind a police line and
said the police statements corroborate his own account. “Four officers saw the
same thing I did,” he said.
The
family, on behalf of Geer’s two daughters, has filed a wrongful death suit
against the county. “John had his hands above his shoulders and he was
unarmed,” Don Geer said. “And there was no justification for Officer Torres to
shoot him. I think they should go through and press charges against Torres and
let the legal system do what it does.”
His
‘hands were up’
The
police documents paint a vivid picture of a tense 44-minute showdown between
Geer, 46, and the officers who had come to resolve a domestic dispute between
Geer and his live-in partner of 24 years, Maura Harrington. The couple, who had
two daughters together, had just had an argument over the phone, and Geer had
begun throwing some of Harrington’s belongings onto their front yard.
Harrington came home and called 911.
When
Torres, then a 30-year-old officer with seven years’ experience, and Officer
David Neil arrived at 2:52 p.m., Geer immediately turned and walked inside the
townhouse. As the officers approached, Geer held up a holstered handgun and,
according to both officers, said, “I have a gun; I will use it if I need to
because you guys have guns.”
Torres
quickly ducked behind a tree trunk 17 feet from the front door, pulled his gun
and aimed it at Geer. Neil pulled his gun but kept it pointed down. Geer soon
placed his gun on the ground, and no officer saw it again, according to their
statements.
Five
minutes later, Barnes arrived. Neil went to a nearby townhouse to interview
Harrington.
Barnes,
a 49-year-old former Navy seaman, was a trained negotiator who was on patrol
that day. He began to develop a rapport with Geer, and he told investigators
that he felt Geer was comfortable with him, the records show.
Geer
kept his hands on top of the storm door and repeatedly declined Barnes’s
requests to come out, the officers reported. Instead, Geer repeatedly asked
Torres to lower his weapon. Torres did so, but whenever Geer announced that he
had to scratch his nose, Torres would refocus his aim on Geer’s chest, the
documents show.
Officers
Parker and Benjamin Kushner arrived next and took up positions behind vehicles
in the townhouse community’s parking lot. Parker had a rifle and Kushner had a
shotgun, the reports said. Each said they kept their eyes trained on Geer, with
Parker telling investigators, according to transcripts: “I never even took my
gun off of safety.” They said they could hear the conversation between Barnes
and Geer, and both Parker and Barnes recalled Geer saying he did not want to
get shot.
Meanwhile,
Neil interviewed Harrington and radioed his findings to the other officers.
Geer had “made comments that he’s 45 seconds from putting a bullet in his
head,” Neil told his fellow officers, according to the transcripts, “and he
told a friend of his that he had a gun and he might do a suicide-by-cop type of
situation. Be advised.”
Neil
also reiterated Harrington’s statement that she made in her 911 call that Geer
had other guns, including a handgun and a rifle, in the house, “so there might
be some more weapons inside the house as well.” Torres would later tell
investigators that he did not hear any updates from Neil’s interview with
Harrington about Geer’s state of mind or that he had other guns in the house.
But
at 3:34 p.m., as Barnes was still talking with Geer, Torres squeezed his
trigger and shot Geer, surprising the three other officers, the documents say.
Geer closed the front door,and Barnes and Torres darted to the side of the
townhouse. “Who shot?” Barnes said he demanded angrily. “I did,” Torres said he
told him. “I’m sorry.”
But
police, unsure whether Geer was alive and armed, did not enter the house for 70
minutes, until the SWAT team arrived with an armored truck and battering ram.
When the tactical officers entered, Geer was dead just inside the front door.
Torres
said he fired because Geer had been complaining about being thirsty “and then . . .
he brought both his hands down really quick near his waist, and I pulled the
trigger one time, and hit him under his right rib cage.”
Homicide
Detective John Farrell, who was the lead investigator into the shooting, asked
whether the shot was accidental. Torres emphasized that it was not. “He brought
his hands down too far,” Torres said.
Barnes
told investigators that Geer’s “hands were up.” Parker told investigators that
Geer “started to move his left hand barely off the sill of the door.” Kushner
said Geer’s hands were “right around his face area.” Lt. Ronald Manzo, who also
was at the scene, said Geer’s hands were at “about his shoulder height.”
Investigation
begins
As
police investigated the shooting, detectives questioned Torres about whether
there were any other reasons he might have shot Geer, the records show.
The
detectives learned that immediately after the shooting, Torres told Barnes that
he had been arguing with his wife on the phone as he drove to the call. The
argument may have caused Torres to miss key facts about the situation that had
been broadcast by dispatchers, the documents show, such as the warning that
Geer had other weapons in the house.
Farrell
and his partner, homicide Detective Chris Flanagan, pressed Torres about the
phone call with his wife: “Do you shoot Mr. Geer because you’re angry at your
wife?” Farrell asked him, a transcript shows.
“No,”
Torres replied. “Not at all.”
But
the investigation continued to delve into Torres’s background as the county
prosecutor considered whether to seek an indictment.
In
particular, Morrogh was aware of Torres’s blowup in the courthouse with an
assistant prosecutor five months earlier. The prosecutor was Chuck Peters, a
former Fairfax deputy police chief who became a lawyer after he retired.
In
March 2013, while handling a drunken-driving case brought by Torres, Peters
told the officer that there were problems with the case. Torres repeatedly
cursed at Peters and then stormed out of the courthouse. Word of the incident
reached police headquarters, and Peters told investigators that five top police
commanders called him to apologize for Torres’s outburst.
An
internal affairs investigation was launched, but the outcome is unknown. When
Morrogh requested the file in the fall of 2013, the police department refused
to give it to him. In January 2014, he sent the case to the U.S. attorney’s
office in Alexandria, who also ran into resistance from the Fairfax police, the
Justice Department said. The case is still being reviewed by the Justice
Department’s civil rights division, with no known resolution date.
Lieberman,
the Geer family lawyer, said, “It is hard to believe that a Virginia state
grand jury has not been presented with this information and that it took
Fairfax County 17 months to disclose this information to the Geer family.”
Justin
Jouvenal contributed to this report.
WE NEED TO CHANGE THE
COPS, NOT ENCOURAGE THEIR AWFUL BEHAVIOR
Boycott the following
companies for hosting the Fairfax 2015 World Police & Fire Games
Apple Federal Credit Union,
LMI,
Noblis,
B.F. Saul Company,
Galls LLC,
Sage Communications,
Macerich,
Glory Days Grill,
Reston Limousine,
City of Fairfax, Karin’s Florist,
NOVA Media Services,
Clyde’s Restaurant Group,
Level3 Communications,
Verizon
Globe, Dewberry,
IMC, ESPN 980,
Serco,
Loudoun County,
Grant Thornton,
Prince William Convention and Visitors Bureau and
Booz Allen Hamilton.
Want to change the murderous arrogance and indifference of the
Fairfax County Police? Then fire the
people who hire the cops and watch how quickly things change. Start with tossing Gerry Hyland out of
office. He basically works for the cop’s best interest and not yours.
Bottom line, if politicians don’t fear that you can harm their
careers, then you don’t exist. They don’t see you, they don’t hear you. You
don’t matter.
Register to vote, form a political action committee. Run a
candidate. Take back your government.
