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Before

“Before, we had crimes that oppressed us; Now, we have laws that oppress us.” Tacitus (56 B.C.)

Distrust

“Distrust all men in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”                                                                                                       Friedrich Nietzsche 

...then put body cameras on your goddamn cops

“Cost is not an issue for a human life.” 

                                                        Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler 

Mass killings, school shootings are contagious

Mass killings and school shootings in the U.S. appear to be contagious, according to a team of scientists from Arizona State University and Northeastern Illinois University.

Study author Sherry Towers, research professor in the ASU Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center, explained, "The hallmark of contagion is observing patterns of many events that are bunched in time, rather than occurring randomly in time."

Her team examined databases on past high-profile mass killings and school shootings in the U.S. and fit a contagion model to the data to determine if these tragedies inspired similar events in the near future.

They determined that mass killings -- events with four or more deaths -- and school shootings create a period of contagion that lasts an average of 13 days. Roughly 20 to 30 percent of such tragedies appear to arise from contagion.

Their paper, "Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings," appears in the July 2 edition of PLOS ONE.

The analysis was inspired by actual events in Towers' life.

"In January of 2014 I was due to have a meeting with a group of researchers at Purdue University," she said. "That morning there was a tragic campus shooting and stabbing incident that left one student dead. I realized that there had been three other school shootings in the news in the week prior, and I wondered if it was just a statistical fluke, or if somehow through news media those events were sometimes planting unconscious ideation in vulnerable people for a short time after each event."

The researchers noted that previous studies have shown that suicide in youths can be contagious, where one suicide in a school appears to spark the idea in other vulnerable youths to do the same.

"It occurred to us that mass killings and school shootings that attract attention in the national news media can potentially do the same thing, but at a larger scale," Towers said. "While we can never determine which particular shootings were inspired by unconscious ideation, this analysis helps us understand aspects of the complex dynamics that can underlie these events."

On average, mass killings involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the U.S., and school shootings occur on average monthly. The team found that the incidence of these tragedies is significantly higher in states with a high prevalence of firearm ownership.

________________________________________

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Arizona State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

________________________________________

Journal Reference:

1.         Sherry Towers, Andres Gomez-Lievano, Maryam Khan, Anuj Mubayi, Carlos Castillo-Chavez. Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings. PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (7): e0117259 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117259

________________________________________

Cite This Page:

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Arizona State University. "Mass killings, school shootings are contagious." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 July 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150702151520.htm>.

Significant reduction in serious crimes after juvenile offenders given emotional awareness training

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY;

THE TORRES TWO YEAR VACATION PLAN....."ITS LIKE GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER!"

(The Torres Two Year Vacation Plan is openly only to members of  the Fairfax County Police. Everyone else goes to jail)   

Scientists believe that a simple two-hour emotional awareness course aimed at making young offenders less aggressive could hold the key to significantly reducing the seriousness of their future crimes.

In the first ever study of its kind, psychologists from Cardiff University recorded a 44% drop in the severity of crimes committed by persistent reoffenders, six months following the completion of a course designed to improve their ability to recognise other people's emotions. The findings are published in PLOS ONE journal.

Much has been published previously to suggest that adolescents who display antisocial behaviour have problems in facial emotional recognition, particularly fear and sadness.

By heightening their ability to perceive these emotions, researchers believe they can instil in young offenders a stronger sense of empathy for potential victims, and consequently a reduction in physical aggression and instances of severe crime.

To explore this idea, they studied the emotion recognition capabilities and criminal activity of 50 juvenile offenders (with an average age of 16) from the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan Youth Offending Services (YOS).

While all the participants of the study received their statutory intervention -- involving contact with a caseworker, as ordered by the courts -- a sub-group of 24 offenders also took part the research team's facial affect training, aimed at improving their emotion recognition capabilities and normally used to rehabilitate patients with brain-damage.

Offenders in the sub-group and those only receiving statutory intervention were matched for age, socioeconomic status, IQ and criminal history. During the study, each group was tested twice for emotion recognition performance, and recent crime data was collected six months after testing had been completed.

Lead author Professor Stephanie Van Goozen, from Cardiff University's School of Psychology, said:

"Poor emotion recognition in children and adolescents can cause antisocial behaviour. Our study shows that this recognition can be corrected using an approach that is both cost-effective and relatively quick.

"Our findings support our belief that a population of individuals, whose combined offending produces the majority of harm in communities, can be made to behave less aggressively with the knock-on effect of bringing about a significant drop in serious crime.

"We would like to extend this research to younger age groups, particularly to children who are at risk of developing antisocial behaviour later in life that could result in violence, substance abuse, health problems and psychiatric illness.

"Emotion recognition training could set children on a much more positive path in life -- one which doesn't have to involve serious crime or violence against others, to the benefit of society and themselves."

Researchers measuring the severity of participants' crimes used a score system ranging from 1-8: '1' indicates a public order offence while '8' means murder. The average offence severity of the facial affect training sub-group was 3.75 six months prior to training, dropping to 2.08 six months after.

Facial affect training consists of several levels of emotional tasks, where participants are required, among other scenarios, to identify the emotional expression of a face, to describe an event that has made them feel that emotion and mimic the emotion using a mirror. Tasks also include focusing on specified features of an emotional face and selecting the correct description of that feature from several options.

The emotion recognition test consists of 150 slides presented on a laptop, displaying facial expressions -- including happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust -- at varying degrees of emotional intensity. Participants have to guess what emotion is displayed.

These findings are consistent with the results of a study conducted at Bristol University in 2013, in which researchers succeeded in modifying a tendency for aggressive youths to interpret anger in ambiguous expressions. Participants reported feeling less aggressive and acting less aggressively for two weeks following the intervention.

Mount Vernon: Hyland’s Office Apologizes for Using County Email to Endorse Storck

By Tim Peterson

When retiring supervisor Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) announced an endorsement for Dan Storck as his replacement, the release came through the Mt_Vernon@fairfaxcounty.gov email.

The endorsement followed Storck’s victory over Tim Sargeant, Jack Dobbyn and Candice Bennett in the June 9 Democratic primary election.

Use of the county email address in this instance could be viewed as running afoul of Fairfax County’s employee handbook policy on using information technology for personal conduct, as well as the Virginia Code.

Specifically, section 15.2-1512.2F of the state law prohibits employees of a locality from “suggesting or implying that a locality has officially endorsed a political party, candidate or campaign.”

Following the email Hyland’s chief of staff Brett Kenney sent out the following statement:

“I apologize for sending the email using Supervisor Hyland’s Fairfax County email address. When we sent the email, his Fairfax County address automatically populated in the from line of the email, rather than his campaign email address. It was a regrettable oversight. We should have paid more attention to the originating email address. No county time or resources were spent on the drafting or dissemination of the email. Supervisor Hyland wants the residents of Mount Vernon to know that the Supervisor race is a contested one between Supervisor Hyland’s preferred candidate, the Democratic nominee Dan Storck and the Republican nominee, Jane Gandee. Supervisor Hyland looks forward to a good, positive debate on the real issues confronting the Mount Vernon District.”

Gerry "Opps Dearie" HylandThe cops protector on the board of Supervisors

The clown on the left is Dan Stroke. He really dresses like that. It's a not a joke. Electing another dummy for the cops would be a joke however. 

YES in fact YOU CAN film the cops in a public space while they are working

Police Officer Shooting At Dog Hits Nearby Toddler, Leaves ‘Without Offering Help’

The family's attorney says ""There was absolutely no reason for him to shoot. He was within 10 (or) 12 feet of the children."

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A 4-year-old girl who was shot in the leg when a police officer fired at a dog is recovering after surgery as her family questions how the officer responded.

Ava Ellis was hit accidentally on the afternoon of June 19 when an officer fired at a charging dog at a home in Whitehall, in central Ohio, according to Columbus police. The department said another relative had flagged down the officer for help after the girl’s mother cut herself on glass.

Ava’s parents, Andrea and Brad Ellis, and their attorney disputed the police account Tuesday and alleged the policeman fired unnecessarily and acted recklessly with children nearby on the porch. They say the roughly 40-pound dog, a bulldog mix named Patches, was retreating inside from the porch when the officer fired.

“The dog may have barked at the officer; however, the officer should not have shot,” attorney Michael Wright said. “There was absolutely no reason for him to shoot. He was within 10 (or) 12 feet of the children.”

The family also says people yelled to notify the officer that the girl was hurt but claims he drove away without offering help, and other emergency responders had to care for the girl.

 The department identified him as Officer Jonathan Thomas, who had been with the force for five years.

He is not on paid administrative leave, as the Ellises’ attorney suggested, Alex-Bouzounis said.

The Ellis family and their attorneys are conducting a private investigation separate from the pending police investigation of what happened, said Wright, who added that it was too early to comment on possible legal action by Ava’s parents.

The family says the bullet broke Ava’s leg, and she’ll require further surgeries.

THESE COMPANIES SUPPORTED THE FAIRFAX COUNTY COPS SPORTS GAMES

John Geer is still dead

The cop who killed him is still on a paid vacation after two years

The cops refuse to wear body cameras

and the companies saw to fit to underwrite the cops....thanks for nothing 

HI!

I'm John Faust

I am on the board of supervisors and I have never, not once, ever, spoken out or spoken up about the Fairfax County Police. When they shot and killed two unarmed men...I said nothing...and now I want you to reelect me. 

YOU GET THE GOVERNMENT YOU DESERVE

Cursing out the cops is perfectly legal — but police routinely arrest people for it

TERRELL JERMAINE STARR, ALTERNET

Being rude is not illegal, even if some of us sometimes wish it were. Being rude to cops, including cursing them out may be ill-advised, but it is protected speech.Yet that doesn’t mean you won’t end up in bracelets anyway.

As the Marshall Project reports, many citizens are illegally arrested for cursing at cop, when in fact, their speech is protected. A police officer from the McKinney, TX police department was captured on the now infamous pool party video throwing a 15-year-old girl to the ground after he accused her of mouthing off. He was later fired for his actions.

Last week, the Washington Supreme Court threw out an obstruction case against a man who cursed at cops after they were called to investigate a disturbance at his home in 2011. In December, a Georgia woman was awarded a $100,000 settlement after cops arrested her in 2012 and placed her in solitary confinement for cursing at them and flipping the officers the bird.

Threatening speech is a different matter. If someone threatens violence against a cop (“I’ll fuck you up!”) or challenges a law enforcement officer to a fight, those are “fighting words.” Whether or not they are meant seriously, fighting words can lead to a legal arrest. Other than that, cursing at cops in frustration after being stopped or dealing with an unpleasant police situation should not get you locked up.

Eric Guster, a civil rights defense attorney based in Birmingham, Ala., told AlterNet that people should record verbal interactions with officers because it will be a matter of “he said, she said” if a cop slaps handcuffs on you for cursing at him.

“By the time a police officer gets his story together, the police report will read, ‘The person said, I’m going to kick your ass.’ Just like the South Carolina shooting where Walter Scott was accused of reaching for the cop’s taser. Then we saw what really happened when the video came out,” Guster said. “That is why I encourage people to record all of the interactions they can. Sometimes, they can’t get video, but at minimum, you can turn on your recorder, put it on your car seat, put it in your pocket, just to record the events.”

There are no statistics available to determine how many citizens are arrested for cursing at officers, but courts around the country consistently rule in favor of defendants who find themselves behind bars for using profane, but protected speech against law enforcement.

Last Thursday, the Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned the conviction of Richard Gonzalez, who had been charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a weapon after he ranted and raved expletives at cops. He was convicted and sentenced to three and a half to seven years in prison. The appeals court ruled Gonzalez wasn’t engaged in disorderly conduct just by virtue of shouting obscenities, and that this behavior wasn’t a “potential or immediate public problem.” And because he didn’t commit a crime, the cops had no probable cause to search him.

Eric Sanders, a civil rights attorney who served as a police officer in the NYPD for more than 12 years, told AlterNet that most of the cops making these arrests should never have been given a badge and a gun.

“There are too many people who don’t belong in policing,” said Sanders, who has spent much of his legal career suing the NYPD for various civil rights allegations.“That is never addressed by anybody. You’re supposed to have thick skin. They teach you that in the police academy. You represent the government, and when you represent the government, it is not always favored by the people. So what? As long as they are following the law, who cares?”

The use of vulgar speech against police officers came to a head during the late 1980s when N.W.A. released Straight Outta Compton, which featured a track titled, “Fuck the Police.” Many officers who served as security for music concerts refused to protect the young hip hop group when they toured the country. During a Detroit concert, policerushed to the stage after Ice Cube started speaking lyrics from the song. The group fled the stage and were later questioned by the cops. No one was charged. Asked why the officers rushed the stage, one was quoted as saying, “We just wanted to show the kids that you can’t say ‘Fuck the Police’ in Detroit.”

Sanders believes the reaction to N.W.A. was purely racial. White America, he says, wasn’t ready to hear a group of young black men use music to express speech that challenged police authority—and it still isn’t.

“Privileged white people talk about the government all day long on television,” he said. “Rush Limbaugh and others say all kinds of things about the government. You see them being arrested? They’re not going to have street encounters. The average person walking around in the neighborhood is likely to have street encounters because the police interactions with them are diametrically different than what would occur on the Upper East Side.”

People are often charged with disorderly conduct for cursing at officers. In 2012, the ACLU of New York found that black students in city schools made up a majority of the disorderly conduct summonses for the 2011-2012 school year. Last year, the New York Daily News reported that, between 2001 and 2013, a disproportionate number of minorities were arrested for disorderly conduct under “broken windows.” In Minneapolis, a black person is 8.86 times more likely to be arrested than a white person for disorderly conduct, according to the ACLU.

While it is not known exactly how many of these arrests are the result of profanity being used toward police officers, it does reveal a trend of hyper-policing that troubles Sanders.

“As long as they are not breaking the law, people are allowed to have their First Amendment right to say, ‘Fuck the police.’ It’s reality. ‘Fuck the police. I hate all cops.’ Is it a nice thing to hear? No. But is it legal? Sure it is. There is no law against that,” he said.

That may be so, but Guster warns that it’s still smart to keep your cool during a stop or interaction with law enforcement. The hassle going to court to fight the case, pay bail and secure a lawyer may not be worth it.

“You can cuss at them all day, but they can arrest you, although it’s not legal,” he said. “It’s just the trouble of dealing with it later on that is the problem. And the police know that.”

THESE COMPANIES SUPPORTED THE FAIRFAX COUNTY COPS SPORTS GAMES

John Geer is still dead

The cop who killed him is still on a paid vacation after two years

The cops refuse to wear body cameras

and the companies saw to fit to underwrite the cops....thanks for nothing 

HI!

I'm John Faust

I am on the board of supervisors and I have never, not once, ever, spoken out or spoken up about the Fairfax County Police. When they shot and killed two unarmed men...I said nothing...and now I want you to reelect me. 

YOU GET THE GOVERNMENT YOU DESERVE

The cops body count so far

This Is How Many People Police Have Killed So Far This Year

by Carimah Townes  

At least 550 people — many of whom were unarmed and/or mentally ill — have been killed by police in the first six months of the year. A Guardian database, which puts the figure at 545, shows Caucasians have been killed more than any other race or ethnic group this year, but blacks and Latinos have been killed at higher rates. Nearly 120 people were unarmed. And by the Washington Post’s count, 461 people have been shot and killed by an on-duty officer.

In June alone, cops killed 75 people. At least 60 of those people were shot.

The growing count is alarming, yet there’s also been a proliferation of databases tracking lethal police encounters more closely than ever. Law enforcement has been killing people for decades, however a dearth of reliable national data obscured the number deaths caused by police in years past. But with police brutality becoming more visible, thanks to social media and traditional news media, the need to catalog relevant demographic and geographic information about victims has quickly become a national priority.

You can read about some of the more egregious cases in February, March, April, and May, but here are some of the heinous incidents from the past month.

Deng Manyoun; Louisville, KY: One of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who immigrated to the U.S. to escape a brutal civil war, Manyoun was shot and killed for rushing at an officer with a 7-foot flag pole. The 35-year-old was stumbling on a sidewalk when he was approached by Officer Nathan Blanford, who was driving by in a squad car. Surveillance footage shows the two arguing before Manyoun disappears and returns with the pole. Manyoun then swings the pole at Blanford, who fires his weapon twice. Manyoun died of gunshot wounds, at a local hospital.

Amid public backlash, Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad maintains Blanford’s actions were justified. But protesters argue the officer should have used non-lethal force, especially since Manyoun was visibly intoxicated.

Spencer Lee McCain; Owing Mills, MD: The unarmed black man was shot and killed by three Baltimore County police officers responding to a domestic disturbance call. When they arrived at the home of Shannon Sulton, officers reported they heard screams and forced their way into the house. All three fired, later saying McCain was in a “defensive position” and moving in a way that signaled he had a weapon. Nineteen shell cases were found after the shooting, although no weapon was discovered. Sulton was bruised and cut.

Two children, including a 10-year-old who initially called and alerted his grandmother about the disturbance, were present at the time of the shooting — highlighting another major flaw in modern-day policing. Due to inadequate training, police who confront parents in the presence of their kids wind up traumatizing the children, especially when officers are responding to domestic violence calls. Experts say cops should refrain from drawing their weapons or cuffing suspects in front of children. But officers who do use forceful tactics wind up exacerbating children’s emotional distress, making them “feel helpless” and “blame themselves for not preventing the violence, or for causing it.”

Walter William DeLeon; Los Feliz, CA: An unarmed 48-year-old man was shot in the head and killed by Officer Cairo Palacios because the cop thought a towel wrapped around the victim’s hand was concealing a weapon. Then the man was rolled over and handcuffed. Both the officer involved and his partner allege they were stuck in traffic when DeLeon walked in their direction. His arms were extended and covered by a cloth, and he didn’t obey the officers when they exited their vehicle and commanded him to “drop the gun,” the officers say. Palacios fired when DeLeon continued walking in their direction. DeLeon’s son later explained that his dad usually carried the towel to wipe off sweat. The victim may have been flagging down the officers for help, but the reason for doing so is unclear.

“At first, I thought it was like a random person that did it,” said 18-year-old William DeLeon. “Then I found out it was the cops. I didn’t understand why, because I know my dad wouldn’t do anything to provoke it.”

THESE COMPANIES SPONSORED THE FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE GAMES 

Know your donuts.....you can learn the law later

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

THE TORRES TWO YEAR VACATION PLAN

"Its like getting away with murder!"

Cop Olympics To Open In Fairfax County, Va., Where Killer Cops Go Free

Dave McKenna

Anybody afraid of law enforcement should stay out of Northern Virginia for the next few weeks. And anybody familiar with the police in Northern Virginia should be afraid.

Starting on Friday, Fairfax County will host the 2015 World Police and Fire Games, the cop Olympics. It’s a huge deal for the county. Organizers bill the soirée as “the second largest global multi-sport event,” with only the real Olympics being bigger. Tony Shobe, sports director for what’s being called Fairfax 2015, claims that about 25,000 visitors will arrive to take part or spectate alongside the locals.

When the games were awarded, Fairfax County supervisor Michael Frey gushed in a press release about all the wonders of the area. “This is an outstanding opportunity for Fairfax County to showcase our exceptional First Responders and the world-class destination that we are,” the release read.

The sort of exceptionalism displayed by Fairfax County law enforcement these days, however, isn’t something the locals really want the world to look at. Take Tony Shobe’s workplace, for example. When not promoting Fairfax 2015, he serves as commander of the Emergency Response Team of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office—which is really the county jail’s in-house SWAT team. His unit is now being scrutinized for the killing of Natasha McKenna.

“You promised not to hurt me!”

McKenna, 37, suffered fatal injuries on Feb. 3 at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Authorities in Fairfax County routinely clam up when its law enforcers kill unarmed citizens, which happens pretty often. (In fact, if stonewalling were an event at this year’s Games, the hometown cops would be the chalk.) But the information about McKenna’s killing that has leaked out in subsequent months sounds like the stories that came out of Abu Ghraib during the Iraq invasion.

In late January, McKenna was arrested after employees of a Hertz outpost in Alexandria, Va., called police to report that she was being disruptive while returning a rental car. She fled when the cops arrived and was later detained by Fairfax County police on assault charges filed by an officer from Alexandria, a neighboring jurisdiction, who alleged McKenna threw a punch during the Hertz incident. Because the charges weren’t from Fairfax, the county would not conduct psychological evaluations of its prisoner, who had a history of mental illness, and decided to transport her to Alexandria. Incident reports uncovered by Tom Jackman of the Washington Post detail how a crew of sheriff’s department staffers—including six members of Shobe’s Emergency Response Team wearing full hazmat suits over their standard armored outfits—entered the 5-foot-3, 130-pound McKenna’s cell. The deputies cuffed her arms behind her back, shackled her legs, applied a device known as a “Ripp Hobble” to connect the arm and leg restraints and thereby further restrict her movement, and put a hood over her head. They then electrocuted her repeatedly with a taser set on 50,000-volts, according to the Post.

Tasers are designed to temporarily paralyze targets by shutting down their muscular system with electric jolts, typically delivered through probes shot into the skin. But when the standard methods didn’t sufficiently incapacitate McKenna, Fairfax deputies removed the probes from their taser and just pressed the device directly to her thigh and continued zapping her. That technique, called a “drive stun,” is used strictly to inflict pain on a target, not cause muscular incapacitation; further, stun guns are not recommended for use on mentally ill targets. McKenna’s heart stopped while the deputies were restraining her, and she died when taken off life support machines a few days later. The deputies reported that as they were inflicting mortal damage upon her, McKenna was yelling, “You promised not to hurt me!”

Fairfax County authorities listed McKenna’s death as “accidental” after a coroner ruled that she died of “Excited Delirium during physical restraint, including the use of a conductive energy device.” What happened hardly seems accidental. But the county has essentially taken a “Deputies don’t kill prisoners, tasers kill prisoners” stance. The use of tasers in the jail has been suspended, but no charges have been filed against anybody involved in the killing.

The outrage over McKenna’s death has grown over the months, as the Post’s continued reporting and editorializing on the matter have been picked up by other media outlets. But legal authorities in Fairfax County have done nothing obvious to quell it. The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office said shortly after McKenna’s death that the jailhouse incident was captured by security cameras, but those videos have not been made public. The names of the public servants who killed McKenna have not been released, either.

The behavior of the law enforcement community in the county, rather, has provided a study in stalling. Take the county’s inert handling of the taser used in McKenna’s killing. On April 21, about two and a half months after McKenna was killed, Fairfax County police posted a statement about how the weapon used to kill McKenna would be “inspected and analyzed to ensure it was working within designed specifications.” Subsequent updates—one on May 22, another on June 18—have reiterated that the weapon is being tested. Exactly why it’s taken nearly five months to perform these tests is unclear.

“I don’t want to die today!”

An awful truth about the glacial pace and complete lack of transparency in the investigation of McKenna’s killing is that this how it always goes in Fairfax County.

As the police Olympiad opens, in fact, the Fairfax County cops still have the killing of John Geer hanging over their heads.

 In August 2013, Geer was shot by an FCPD officer in broad daylight while standing in the doorway of his home, unarmed and with his hands up. The police had been called to investigate a domestic dispute between Geer and his longtime partner, and his killing occurred not long after Geer told the lawman who would end up killing him, “I don’t want to die today.” Friends, family and neighbors were among those who saw him killed. Several Fairfax County cops who were on the scene told superiors within the department that one of their own, Officer Adam Torres, had no good reason to fire the shot that killed Geer. Photographs taken by neighbors just before the killing show him with his arms up. But despite all the in-house testimony and civilian witnesses, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh declined to file charges against Torres. In fact, Torres remains on the FCPD payroll. The county refused to even tell Geer’s family who killed their kin for 16 months, and only released that information after the U.S. Department of Justice and Senator Charles Grassley got involved. Only because of that outside pressure, a grand jury was empaneled in early June to decide whether to indict Torres for the killing. But that grand jury won’t meet until the end of July; the hold-up makes no sense, unless Morrogh didn’t want the proceedings going on while the cop Olympics crowd was in town.

Officials in Fairfax County, Va., apparently hoped to use the cover of Super Bowl weekend to help…Read more theconcourse.deadspin.com

If Torres is indicted, it will be the first time in the history of the Fairfax County Police Department that an officer has been charged for an improper shoot. In recent years, FCPD officers have been cleared in the shooting death of Sal Culosi, an unarmed optometrist who’d been accused of accepting football bets from an undercover officer, and in the killing of David Masters, who was unarmed and sitting in the driver’s seat of his car. stopped at a stoplight when a cop shot him in the back. In explaining why he wasn’t prosecuting Masters’ killer, Morrogh initially told the public that the victim was not shot in the back by the police officer, despite eyewitnesses, an autopsy, and photographic evidence to the contrary. Those mulling whether to travel to Fairfax County during the cop Olympics should note that the place has a history of allowing police officers from other jurisdictions to get away with murder, too. In 2000, undercover officer Carlton B. Jones was sitting in an unmarked car when he shot unarmed Howard University student Prince Jones (no relation) five times in the back in the Falls Church section of Fairfax County in what the officer said was a case of mistaken identity. Former Fairfax County prosecutor Robert Horan declined to indict Carlton B. Jones or even bring the case to a grand jury.

It's been nine years since police in Fairfax County, Va., turned small-time bettor Sal Culosi…Read more Read more

“This is a very sad day in Fairfax County, when the commonwealth’s attorney legitimizes murder,” Ted Williams, an attorney for Prince Jones’ family, told the Washington Post at the time.

Fairfax’s reputation has led Geer’s loved ones to temper their expectations that they will get justice.

“I think we’re passed the stalling phase, and now we’re at the roadblock phase,” says Jeff Stewart, a close friend of Geer’s and witness to his killing. “I’m trying to keep an open mind about this. But no officer has ever been charged in the history of the department. How long do you go before that record becomes questionable? How long before that’s considered too good to be true? I know this: If this Fairfax County officer doesn’t get indicted, no officer ever will get indicted.”

FCPD’s investigation was moving so slowly, in fact, that Geer’s family settled its civil suit with the county without even waiting for the criminal proceedings to play out. The county will pay his estate $2.95 million.

“I have never seen anything like it in my 22 years in insurance,” says Chris Carey. He’s the administrator of the Virginia Association of Counties Group Self-Insurance Risk Pool (VACoRP), the insurance underwriter that holds the liability policy for the Fairfax County Police Department and its employees.

Carey says standard operating procedure for VACoRP in cases involving alleged police malfeasance is for all parties to wait until the criminal investigations and prosecutions run their course. “The criminal stuff [in the Geer case] took so long to adjudicate that we decided, along with the plaintiffs, to just get out of it.”

The settlement in the Geer suit is being called the largest amount ever paid by a county government in Virginia in a wrongful death suit. Fairfax County is responsible for the first $1 million. The rest will come from VACoRP’s coffers.

The policy with Fairfax County has an exclusion against covering “personal injury or property damage brought about or contributed to by the fraudulent, dishonest or criminal behavior of any covered person.” That means that if Ofcr. Torres were convicted of a crime related to the killing of Geer, VACoRP would not have had to pay out a dime. Yet VACoRP agreed to pay out its share of the settlement—$1.95 million—rather than wait to see if that happened.

“I’m kind of thinking: Do I think there’s a chance he gets indicted? Do I think there’s a chance he gets convicted?” Carey says. “And, geez, I don’t think so.”

Anybody brave enough to visit Fairfax for the Games might be attracted to the featured entertainment offering from organizers: A tour of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Space is limited.

________________________________________

Natasha McKenna is not related to the writer of this story. Contact the writer at dave.mckenna@deadspin.com. Illustration by Jim Cooke

THESE COMPANIES ARE SPONSORING  THE FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE COP GAMES...proud of yourselves?