Fairfax
County considers new information policy in police shootings
By Tom Jackman February 18
Fairfax County is considering
adopting a new policy for police shootings which would require release of the
involved officers’ names within 72 hours of the incident, monthly public
updates after the incident, and a public summary of facts when the case is
turned over to the Fairfax prosecutor.
The issue arose when Fairfax
police released no information for more than a year after an officer fatally
shot John B. Geer in August 2013. Geer’s family filed a lawsuit in September
2014, followed by a court-ordered release of vast amounts of information in the
lawsuit, which occurred last month. The Board of Supervisors is now pondering
how to divulge information in future law enforcement-involved fatalities, to
include car crashes and in-custody deaths.
Also Tuesday, Supervisor Pat
Herrity (R-Springfield) demanded a full accounting of the money spent by the
county on outside attorneys, after reading in The Washington Post that Fairfax
had already paid $130,000 to the D.C. law firm Hunton amp; Williams to respond
to a November letter about the Geer case from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
Herrity said he had asked for the same information on four occasions since
December from the county’s budget department, but had gotten no answer. He also
asked for the costs of outside counsel in cases involving the Fairfax Water
litigation and for the firing last summer of assistant county attorney Nancy
Loftus. The board directed that Herrity be provided those figures within a
week.
Fairfax Board Chairman Sharon
Bulova has already begun a process, assisted by deputy county executive and
former Fairfax police chief David M. Rohrer, to find a consultant, existing
research and best practices on how to release information after a police
shooting. One proposed policy discussed Tuesday at the board meeting was
drafted by Warren Carmichael, who spent 23 years as the Fairfax County police
public information officer until his retirement in 2002. He now works closely
with the Fairfax City police and recently proposed a policy for that department
which he said will soon be considered by the Fairfax City council. It is below.
The proposal mandates that an
agency “will release” within 72 hours the date, time, location and general
nature of the incident, and “confirmed identities of agency personnel and
others directly involved in the incident,” unless necessary people have not yet
been notified. The proposal also says that “basic facts established as of that
time,” with “existence of conflicting information” noted, should also be
released. If the investigation continues for more than 30 days, “the agency shall
publicly advise the status of the investigation at 30-day intervals.”
When the case is turned over to
the prosecutor, “a summary of the pertinent facts developed during the
investigation will be released,” Carmichael proposes. And once the prosecutor
has made a decision, the agency “shall disclose if appropriate personnel
actions were taken,” without being specific so as not to violate
confidentiality rules.
“This looks like a good
approach, a good starting point,” Bulova said Tuesday. “There may be other
things we may want to consider.”
Herrity also called the
proposed policy “a good start,” and said he hoped that the board would have a
public safety committee hearing, which it has not in more than a year. Gerry
Hyland (D-Mount Vernon), who heads that committee, said he would hold such a
meeting. Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) said she welcomed Carmichael’s proposal,
adding, “I think all of us are looking in the same direction.” Jeff McKay
(D-Lee) said he liked the current police policy, which was devised by Rohrer
and says a chief “may” release an officer’s name only after the prosecutor has
made a decision on charging and if it doesn’t affect the officer’s safety or
duty assignment, but that it may need some changes.
Geer’s case took an unusual
turn when Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh referred the
investigation to federal prosecutors in Alexandria in January 2014, rather than
decide whether or not to charge Officer Adam D. Torres, who shot Geer once
after a 42-minute stand-off. Morrogh said in his own letter to Grassley, and in
e-mails released last month, that he wanted to review Torres’s internal affairs
files before making a charging decision, but that Fairfax police refused to let
him see them. With no charging decision forthcoming from the Justice
Department, the police, prosecutor and politicians all remained silent.
Subsequent public outcry, including a protest march outside of Fairfax police
headquarters last month, led the Board of Supervisors to consider a different
policy for the next incident.
Tom Jackman is a native of
Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998.
Fairfax police commission adds
outside voices
By Antonio Olivo March 14
The Fairfax County police
commission created to deal with problems exposed by the fatal shooting of an
unarmed man in 2013 has added nine members, following complaints that it was
too heavily dominated by people with law-enforcement backgrounds.
The commission, which now has
34 members, was established by county board of supervisors chairman Sharon
Bulova (D) to address public anger over the county’s handling of the
investigation into the shooting of John Geer by Fairfax police officer Adam D.
Torres.
It has scheduled its first
meeting for March 23 and is supposed to deliver recommendations for policy
changes by October.
Chairman Michael Hershman said
the commission will focus on topics including police use-of-force policies and
how the department relays information to the public. He said the panel will
also delve into some of the concerns about police-community relations that were
reflected in nationwide protests that followed the police-involved deaths last
year of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in New York City.
“I’d like to dedicate one
commission meeting as an open forum for citizens to come in and express their
views and feelings,” said Hershman, who is president of the Fairfax Group, a
crisis management company.
“The ultimate goal is to make
sure we have established trust and respect between the community and the police
force and that it’s sustainable in the future.”
The commission originally
included nine people with ties to local law enforcement agencies or unions,
along with the president of the Fairfax Bar Association; a former deputy county
attorney; a criminologist; representatives of local news organizations; and
five citizen representatives, including the president of the Fairfax NAACP and
the executive director of the Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police
Accountability.
Deputy county executive David
M. Rohrer, a former Fairfax police chief, is also on the commission, though he
won’t vote because he is part of the county administration, an aide to Bulova
said.
Among the additions are two
lawyers with civil litigation backgrounds, a professor, a consultant and five
citizen representatives. The citizens include Sal Culosi, whose son was shot to
death by a Fairfax police officer in 2006, and Robert Cluck, of the National
Alliance on Mental Illness. Former commonwealth’s attorney Robert Horan will
also play a role.
Bulova said she wants as many
voices as possible to be part of the conversation, including various police
groups. “There will be a lot of balance and a lot of differing opinions,”
Bulova said. “I’m looking forward to this being an opportunity to come together
over what is not a simple issue.”
Robert Kane, the criminologist
on the commission, said a broad range of perspectives is essential.
“If you put five police
officers around a water cooler and ask them how to solve a crime problem,
you’re likely to get answers like: conduct more corner sweeps, conduct more
stops-and-frisk, establish a curfew for juveniles,” said Kane, who lives in
Fairfax and is on the faculty at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
“But if you get one cop, a
social worker, a teacher, a nurse, and a business owner around the same water
cooler and ask them the same question, you’re likely to get an answer that
addresses crime from multiple dimensions.”
Bulova said the commission
should also look at how county police and sheriff’s deputies deal with people
with mental illness — an issue that has drawn scrutiny in Fairfax after a
mentally ill woman died in the county jail last month following the use of a
Taser on her several times.
“When people wind up in our
jail instead of getting treatment within the community, these are things that
we absolutely need to be addressing,” Bulova said.
Supervisor Michael R. Frey
(R-Sully), who opposed the creation of the commission, said he’s worried that
it will take on too many issues to get anything significant accomplished —
especially with several members of the board of supervisors up for election in
November.
“If you’re going to review the
entire police department, you’re not going to do it in six months,” said Frey,
who is not seeking reelection. “There’s no question this will become a
political football.”
Antonio covers government,
politics and other regional issues in Fairfax County. He worked in Los Angeles,
New York and Chicago before joining the Post in September of 2013.
Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova Bulova to Create
Transparency Review Commission
Group would include citizens,
legal community and other organizations.
By Tim Peterson
#When Alexandria resident
Natasha McKenna was removed from life support and died on Feb. 8, the Fairfax
County Sheriff’s Office posted a release on the county website. It was an
update to an earlier post on Feb. 5 that explained McKenna was an inmate at the
Fairfax County Adult Detention Center who experienced a “medical emergency” on
Feb. 3.
#McKenna was scheduled to be
moved to the Alexandria Adult Detention Center that day. When she fought
against deputies transporting her, they used tasers to restrain her. At that
point, the Fairfax County Police Department was notified and an investigation
of McKenna’s “in-custody inmate death” began.
#February 19, the Police
Department released another update, an 800-word description of the events
leading up to McKenna’s arrest and death. She had called Fairfax County police
herself on Jan. 25 to report being assaulted. Officers accompanied her to a
hospital and through a record check discovered an outstanding arrest warrant
for assaulting an Alexandria police officer back on Jan. 15.
#Though the officers involved
have yet to be named, the content and amount of information released in under
two weeks since McKenna’s death is comparable to that which it took the county
over a year to release following the officer killing of Springfield resident
John Geer.
#According to Fairfax County
Board of Supervisors Sharon Bulova, that was indicative of the board’s
commitment to “making a stronger effort than before to make sure that we’re
putting out as much info as possible.”
#Amid Sen. Charles Grassley
(R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, writing letters to the
county as to why Geer’s investigation has taken so long and how it’s been
handled, as well as public pressure from organizations such as the Justice for
John Geer Facebook group and Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability,
Bulova previously announced the board would seek outside expertise to examine
its policies for releasing information on police action.
#AT THE FEB. 17 MEETING of the
board, supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) introduced a draft policy for
transparency that had been making its way to the Fairfax City Council.
#“You don’t have to look far to
find a good policy on transparency,” said Herrity. “If this had been enforced,
we wouldn’t have had a lof of the problems with the Geer case”.
#That Fairfax proposal mandated
a release of basic facts, any conflicting information and confirmed identities
of individuals involved with the incident -- all within 72 hours of the
incident itself.
#“There were some good
recommendations,” Bulova said, “but I’m not sure that is the only thing that we
want to consider. We’re prepared to take a look at a number of models and best
practices, to include the one the city of Fairfax is considering.”
#February 20, Bulova took
another step and announced the creation of a new commission, made up of
citizens, members of the legal community and other organizations such as the
NAACP, to review police policies.
#“This gives the community an
opportunity to take part in our review,” said Bulova.
#In her release, the Chairman
named Michael Hershman, founder of the Fairfax Group and a citizen appointee to
the Board of Supervisors Audit Committee, chair of this commission. She plans
to bring it before the Board in its March 3 meeting for endorsement. At that
time, Bulova has said she will also announce the rest of the commission’s membership.
#Though the commission is a
step, Herrity remains critical of the Board’s lack of open discussion on the
Geer case and others involving excessive and or lethal force by police
officers.
#“The most disturbing thing to
me is we haven’t had a Public Safety Committee meeting in well over a year,” he
said. “I don’t know why not, there’s not a good answer. And too much of the
board’s discussion has been in closed session. We need to get out into open
session and have a dialog on our policies and practices and get them fixed.”
#BULOVA’S COMMISSION will have
the opportunity to review both the county’s search for “independent expertise”
on releasing information on officer-involved incidents and the Police
Department’s policies and training regarding use of force.
Fairfax
County to create commission in wake of Geer shooting controversy
By Antonio Olivo March 2
In the midst of an
investigation of a police shooting of an unarmed man, Chairman Sharon Bulova of
the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors plans to announce a new 25-member
police commission on Tuesday.
The commission, which will
include members from law enforcement, academia, neighborhood organizations and
the media, was created to “maintain” public trust, Bulova (D) said, in the wake
of the county’s handling the fatal 2013 shooting
of John Geer, who was killed by a county police officer in the doorway of his
Springfield home.
“I want to give everyone an
opportunity to make suggestions” on how the commission reviews police
procedures, Bulova said.
The Geer case has generated
increasing concern among county board members over how police shootings are
handled.
Also on Tuesday, the board will
discuss possible disciplinary action in the office of longtime County Attorney
David P. Bobzien after revelations last week that he and his deputies failed to
keep supervisors apprised of a dispute between police and county prosecutor
Raymond F. Morrogh as he investigated the shooting.
Among the revelations: that
Bobzien’s office didn’t tell supervisors that the county was refusing to
provide files to federal prosecutors in 2014; and that Bobzien’s office didn’t
tell them Morrogh wanted to meet with the supervisors to discuss the advice
Bobzien’s staff was giving police.
“Unless I hear something that’s
dramatically different, I expect there’ll be some terminations in the county
attorney’s office,” Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) said Monday. “It’s
completely unacceptable to not be told the commonwealth’s attorney wants to
speak with us. It’s completely unacceptable to get in the way of a police
investigation.”
Bulova said the new police
commission will be charged with reviewing police department policies after the
Geer case — which has been under review by the federal Department of Justice
for more than a year — exposed concerns over transparency and cooperation by
county officials in criminal investigations.
After Officer Adam D. Torres
shot and killed Geer in the doorway of Geer’s Springfield home, the county
police department — acting on the advice of the county attorney’s office —
refused to turn over internal affairs files to Morrogh’s office, which was
investigating the shooting.
Morrogh referred the case to
federal officials, who, more than a year later, have yet to determine whether
to file criminal charges against Torres.
E-mails released by Morrogh
show that he tried unsuccessfully to discuss his concerns with Bulova and the
other supervisors.
In e-mails, Morrogh said the
county’s attorneys instructed the head of the police internal affairs bureau
not to interview officers involved in shootings because of the possibility that
statements would conflict with ones given in future civil cases — a detail that
county officials dispute.
On Tuesday, county spokesman
Tony Castrilli said no county attorney ever made such a recommendation to Maj.
Michael Kline, the commander of the internal affairs bureau.
When Morrogh asked about the
allegation, “he was told unequivocally and individually by the members of the
County Attorney’s Office present at that meeting that Major Kline must have
misinterpreted something that had been said when he reported such statement to
Mr. Morrogh,” Castrilli said in an e-mailed statement.
Nick Beltrante, a former
District police officer, is among those who will be appointed to the new
Fairfax police commission.
Beltrante, the executive
director of the Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability, has been
lobbying Fairfax board members to create an independent review board since
2010.
He said he has three priorities
as a commission member: “accountability, transparency and to end the
stonewalling.”
The Fairfax police department
“has been failing in the area of accountability,” Beltrante said. “It really
troubles, not only myself, but family members and the general public that even
after an investigation is completed, the department refuses to release basic
information concerning an incident,” he said.
Geer case has Fairfax
supervisors taking another look at attorney
By Tom Jackman and Antonio
Olivo February 27
Members of the Fairfax County
Board of Supervisors plan to order their longtime county attorney to answer for
what they see as his missteps in the handling of the investigation into the
2013 police shooting of an unarmed man.
Several supervisors said they
plan to take up the shooting death of John Geer at their next meeting on
Tuesday. They said they may talk about the possibility of reprimands, and
possibly even termination, for the county attorney or his top deputies.
“Everything is on the table,”
Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee) said. “There has to be action, both swift and
long-term. There have to be consequences for actions like this. There have to
be consequences so people understand who is running this county. It’s not the
people who were hired to work for the county. It’s the people who were
elected.”
The supervisors said their
legal advisers, led by longtime County Attorney David P. Bobzien, failed to
keep them apprised of a dispute between police and county prosecutor Raymond F.
Morrogh in 2013 as he investigated the shooting, didn’t tell them the county
was refusing to provide files to federal prosecutors in 2014, and didn’t tell
them that Morrogh wanted to meet with the supervisors to discuss the advice
Bobzien’s staff was giving police.
The supervisors said they
learned of the developments from a series of e-mails from 2013 and 2014 that
were published Friday in The Washington Post. In the e-mails, between Morrogh
and deputy county attorneys Karen L. Gibbons and Cynthia Tianti, Morrogh expressed
frustration with the county’s decision not to let him see internal affairs
files and with what he said was the attorneys’ advice to police internal
affairs investigators that they should not interview officers involved in
brutality allegations.
The e-mails also show that
Morrogh tried unsuccessfully to discuss his concerns with the board chairman,
Sharon Bulova (D), and the other supervisors.
“It’s clear we can redraw the
organizational chart” of Fairfax government, Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield)
said Friday, “and put the county attorney at the top. They appear to be making
decisions without consulting the board. This is another indication it’s time
for change in the county attorney’s office.”
Also Friday, details began to
emerge about what the supervisors were and weren’t told about the death of Geer
by their attorneys and by Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. and what they have
since learned from legal filings and news reports.
Morrogh’s e-mails said the
county attorneys instructed the police internal affairs bureau not to interview
officers involved in shootings because of the possibility that statements would
conflict with ones given in future civil cases. In a statement issued Friday,
county spokesman Tony Castrilli said that is not the case. “It is not correct
to suggest that [internal affairs] was advised to avoid taking statements from
officers,” the statement said.
Supervisor John W. Foust
(D-Dranesville) said it would be “highly inappropriate” to give such
instructions to officers. “We’ll follow up and get to the bottom of it,” he
said.
Foust said he and other board
members have felt blindsided by learning new information about investigation of
the Geer case through media reports and not Bobzien’s office.
Neither Bobzien nor Tianti, who
is overseeing the Geer case, responded to a request for comment.
Although Bobzien, who has been
with the county for 20 years, is generally well regarded, several board members
said the Geer matter exposed a serious communication gap between his office and
the county’s governing body. Bulova said she and other board members are taking
steps to bridge that gap, including the creation of a commission to review
police policies.
Bulova said “I don’t know”
whether anyone in the county attorney’s office should be dismissed. But she and
other board members said that if a meeting with Morrogh had occurred, they
would likely have chosen to cooperate fully with his office.
Geer, 46, was fatally shot Aug.
29, 2013, as he stood in the doorway of his Springfield townhouse with his
hands on top of the screen door, police witnesses said. The police waited 70
minutes to render aid to Geer, who had already shown them a holstered handgun,
because they didn’t know whether he would try to fire back at them.
The supervisors received their
first briefing on the case on Sept. 10, 2013, in a closed briefing from
Roessler, board records show. Herrity said the chief told them there were
differing accounts of where Geer’s hands were and that there was a delay in
reaching Geer. The board did not receive any details about how many officers
contradicted the version of events given by Officer Adam D. Torres, who shot
Geer, or about Torres’s prior blowup at a Fairfax prosecutor, though that was
well known to top police officials, police documents released last month show.
The board was briefed again in
closed session on Nov. 19, 2013, records show. According to Herrity, members
were informed that Morrogh was seeking the internal affairs files of Torres in
other cases and that the county attorneys were refusing to provide them.
Morrogh’s e-mails show that the
county attorneys and Roessler had already refused to turn over the files in a
meeting five days earlier, on Nov. 14, 2013.
Herrity said the board is made
up mainly of non-lawyers and that when county attorneys provide advice, “absent
something compelling to dispute it, the board tends to follow it. But an
attorney’s job is to give you the pros and cons and lay out options. Not to
make decisions. The board should be the one making the decisions. That clearly
didn’t happen.”
Rebuffed again by county
attorneys in January, Morrogh sent the case to federal prosecutors in
Alexandria. The supervisors learned of that development through the media,
Herrity said.
The board received another
briefing in April and another on Sept. 9, shortly after Geer’s longtime
girlfriend sued Roessler. In the meantime, county attorneys again refused to
produce Torres’s internal affairs files for federal prosecutors, the Justice
Department revealed in a letter in November. That was the first time the
supervisors learned that, Herrity said.
“The board was very upset,”
Herrity said, “at the fact that they hadn’t turned the files over to the feds.
We weren’t told any of that.”
Also in September, another
police shooting occurred, and Morrogh said he wasn’t told of it for hours.
Morrogh asked Virginia State Police to take over the new investigation, but
they declined, county officials said.
Morrogh then sought a meeting
with Bulova and the board to discuss the county attorney’s seemingly new
policies on internal affairs files and interviews. But the prosecutor’s request
was never passed on to Bulova or the supervisors, Bulova said, and the meeting
didn’t happen.
“If a fellow elected official
wants to meet with me, we’re meeting. It’s not even a debate,” McKay said.
With no decision made on
whether to charge Torres, police had refused to release his name or any details
of the case until January, when a Fairfax judge ordered them to do so in the
civil suit. On Jan. 30, the county posted 11,000 documents, photos, audio and
video files of the case online, which Herrity said was the first time the
supervisors learned the details of the shooting.
Herrity said he was willing to
listen to Bobzien and his staff defend their work. “I’m still trying to decide
whether we got overprotective legal advice or just bad legal advice,” Herrity
said.
Stonewalling
in Fairfax County, again
By Editorial Board March 1
IT’S BEEN a month since an
elite, specially trained team of sheriff’s deputies went to extract Natasha
McKenna from her cell at the Fairfax County jail and, when she resisted, shot
her repeatedly with a stun gun. Taken to the hospital, Ms. McKenna, 37, who was
mentally ill, died a few days later without regaining consciousness.
There are a number of
extraordinary aspects to Ms. McKenna’s death, not least that the incident at
the jail was recorded. The 45-minute video spans the attempt to remove her from
her cell to her departure from the jail in an ambulance.
Two weeks after Ms. McKenna’s
death, Sharon Bulova (D), who chairs Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors,
asked to see the video. She directed her request to Sheriff Stacey A. Kincaid,
whose department runs the jail, and Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., whose
department is investigating Ms. McKenna’s death. So far the request by the
county’s top elected official has not been honored, nor has it been denied.
At the same time, neither the
sheriff’s office nor the police have released relevant information to the
public about Ms. McKenna’s death. For example, a spokesperson for the police
department told us in an e-mail that the department cannot say when or if the
six deputies involved in the incident at the jail will be identified.
Many law enforcement agencies
resort reflexively to stonewalling. The Fairfax police have become notorious
for it, having spent 18 months refusing to release information on the 2013
death of John Geer, an unarmed man shot to death by a county police officer in
front of fellow officers who saw no reason to pull the trigger. Now it appears
the police are at it again.
It may be many weeks before the
medical examiner’s office makes public the official cause of Ms. McKenna’s
death. In the meantime, it seems highly probable that the incident at the jail,
specifically the repeated use of the stun gun to subdue her, played a major
part.
Yet there is no sign so far
that the sheriff’s office is reexamining its policies or procedures for
removing inmates from their cells or even for the use of stun guns. Nor have
the deputies involved been put on probation while Ms. McKenna’s death is
investigated. If this is the result of an interaction with a female prisoner
who was, by her lawyer’s account, just 5 feet 3 inches tall, why should anyone
be confident that sheriff’s deputies are competent to extract a bigger and more
physically powerful inmate from a cell?
When unarmed people die at the
hands of uniformed officers, the public deserves an accounting. That accounting
is still lacking in the death of Mr. Geer, and it is now lacking in the case of
Ms. McKenna. In both cases, top officials of the relevant law enforcement
agencies have promised openness and transparency. In both cases their deeds
have contradicted their words.
Fairfax deputy county attorney
could lose job over handling of Geer case
By Antonio Olivo and Tom
Jackman March 5
Fairfax County officials are
trying to oust the deputy county attorney who led the legal team advising the
county police and Board of Supervisors in the 2013 police shooting death of an
unarmed man, according to several people with knowledge of the decision.
Cynthia L. Tianti, a 25-year
veteran of the county attorney’s office, is “on leave,” according to an e-mail
County Attorney David Bobzien sent Wednesday to his staff. And five people with
knowledge of the situation said that Tianti’s leave is the first step in
forcing her out and reorganizing the office in the wake of its handling of the
Geer case.
Bobzien, too, had earlier this
week announced that he will retire in June 2016. But it was Tianti, several
supervisors have said, who led the county attorney office’s involvement in the
Geer case.
Documents show that Tianti
counseled the Fairfax police to withhold internal affairs files from the county
prosecutor investigating the August 2013 shooting, which occurred during a
response to a domestic dispute at Geer’s Springfield townhouse.
And according to board Chairman
Sharon Bulova (D), the county attorney’s office did not tell supervisors that
prosecutor Raymond F. Morrogh had requested a meeting with Bulova and the rest
of the board to discuss the case.
Morrogh, frustrated by what he
saw as obstruction by the police, referred the Geer case to federal
prosecutors, where it has remained since January 2014.
The action against Tianti comes
as part of a reorganization inside the county attorney’s office in response to
anger from county supervisors over being kept in the dark about Morrogh’s
investigation of the killing of Geer by county police officer Adam D. Torres.
Torres told investigators that
he saw Geer move his hands to his waist and thought he might be reaching for a
weapon. But other officers who witnessed the shooting said Geer was standing in
the doorway of his townhouse with his hands overhead, grasping the top of the
storm door, when Torres shot him.
County spokesman Tony Castrilli
declined to comment on Tianti’s employment status. Several county supervisors,
including Bulova, also declined to comment on the specifics — although several
acknowledged that changes in leadership in the attorney’s office are underway.
“There are going to be changes
in the personnel involved in the Geer case,” said Supervisor John C. Cook
(R-Braddock.)
“The legal team assigned to the
case in the county attorney’s office will have new leadership,” added
Supervisor John W. Foust (D-Dranesville.)
“We’re moving in the right
direction,” said Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield), who was chief among
those calling for terminations in the office.
Tianti, who joined the county
attorney’s office in 1989 and is paid about $180,000 a year, did not return
phone calls left at her home in Alexandria did not respond to e-mails sent to
her county e-mail address.
Under county policy, an
employee facing termination has 20 business days to contest that action, which
could lead to a hearing before a three-member civil service commission.
In addition to sending the
e-mail about Tianti’s leave, Bobzien has hired a lawyer, former Prince William
County attorney Sharon E. Pandak, to “assist with personnel-related matters,”
Pandak said Thursday.
In 2013, Tianti was among three
county employees recognized for outstanding work.
In announcing the A. Heath
Onthank award, the county cited Tianti’s coordination of a 2012 settlement of
the 50-year dispute over water service between Fairfax and surrounding
jurisdictions.
Among other things, the
settlement led to the public utility Fairfax Water’s $40 million
purchase of the Falls Church water system.
According to Cook, one of the
county supervisors, the Geer case exposed organizational problems in the
attorney’s office, where Bobzien didn’t always have direct oversight of
conversations and decisions.
The Geer team “was operating
without much input from the county attorney, and that shouldn’t be,” he said.
The reorganization will create
a management structure that has “more reporting up directly to the county
attorney as a way of making sure the county attorney is personally providing
necessary oversight,” Cook said.
County leaders have sought to
stay on top of the Geer case since the problems with the county attorney’s
office were revealed.
Earlier this week, the board
endorsed a 25-member police commission created by Bulova to delve into several
county procedures after a police shooting. The commission is scheduled to
deliver a report of recommendations by Oct. 1.
It is not clear if Bobzien will
retire earlier than he had intended. Under the retirement plan that Bobzien is
enrolled in, he is required to retire by March 2017.
Jail
Death: Video Under Wraps During Investigation, Police Say
Natasha McKenna, 37, died after
suffering a medical emergency soon after she was tased at the Fairfax Adult
Detention Center.
By Sharon Reed (Patch Staff)
March 10, 2015 at 6:05am
Pointing to an ongoing investigation, Fairfax
County Police are not releasing a video showing the treatment of a woman who
died at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center last month. The video
reportedly shows the woman being tased by deputies and further restrained
before suffering a medical emergency during transport between facilities.
The video is “crucial evidence”
as investigators work through dozens of interviews in the death investigation,
according to a message from Police Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. in a statement on
the department’s blog.
“Release of any evidence before
the conclusion of the criminal review process can jeopardize any follow-up
interviews,” Roessler wrote. He did not state when the video would be released
to the public.
Natasha McKenna, 37, of
Alexandria, died Feb. 8 after being taken off life support. McKenna reportedly
had a medical emergency after she was tased by Fairfax County Sheriff’s
deputies Feb. 3 during an attempt to transport her to the Alexandria Adult
Detention Center.
The 45-minute video reportedly
starts with the attempt to remove McKenna from her cell and ends with the
ambulance response to the detention center, according to The Washington Post.
“The Fairfax County Sheriff’s
Office staff are fully cooperating with the investigation. Fairfax County
Police Department detectives have conducted over 50 interviews,” Roessler
wrote. “These interviews include Sheriff deputies involved in the event and
those who were witnesses, other inmates who may have been witnesses, Office of
the Sheriff medical staff, fire and rescue personnel, and other medical staff.”
Results of an autopsy will also
be withheld from the public during the investigation, according to the Chief.
When completed, the results of a medical examiner’s report will be turned over
to the Fairfax County Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for determination
of criminal liability, according to Roessler.
McKenna was arrested on Jan. 20
on charges in Alexandria claiming that she assaulted a law enforcement officer.
Police
Department Remains Under Pressure In Fairfax County
By: Michael Pope
Leaders in Fairfax County,
Virginia, are trying to respond to complaints that their police department uses
excessive force and lacks transparency.
The chairwoman of the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors, Sharon Bulova, is putting together a new
commission to review the department.
"This is about taking a
look at how other jurisdictions and other states handle some of the issues such
as working with the community and the media and the press to release
information," Bulova says.
Back in 2006, the department
sent a SWAT team to raid a gambling game and killed Sal Culosi. Then, in 2009,
Fairfax police killed David Masters, an unarmed driver, and kept the dashboard
video secret. More recently, federal investigators are looking into the death
John Geer, an unarmed Springfield man who was killed in 2013.
One of the members of the newly
created commission, Nicholas Beltrante, is already calling for Police Chief
Edwin Roessler to resign.
"This chief has been
ineffective, and he remains in hiding," Beltrante says.
Through a spokeswoman the chief
denied a request to be interviewed for this story, but the police department
issued a written statement saying it would be premature for the chief to
comment on Beltrante's call for his resignation before the commission meets for
the first time. A date for that meeting has not been set yet.
The
Post's View
Unwarranted
deaths in Fairfax
By Editorial Board March 7
IT TOOK well over a year for
officials in Fairfax County to notice the stunning absence of accountability in
the case of John Geer, an unarmed man who was shot to death by a county police
officer in August 2013. Recently, they have begun taking steps to close that accountability
gap.
Now the clock is ticking on
another apparently senseless death, this time involving Natasha McKenna, a
mentally ill woman who died a month ago after being repeatedly shot with a stun
gun by sheriff’s deputies in the county jail. Ms. McKenna, an unimposing
37-year-old woman, had resisted a specially trained team of six sheriff’s
deputies who went to extract her from her cell. It should not have been
necessary to subdue her with a stun gun, let alone fire it multiple times.
So far, no charges have been
filed, and no resolution reached, in either case. And while critical
information has finally been made public (after months of stonewalling) in the
Geer case — including the identity of the police officer who pulled the trigger
and the accounts of witnesses — it is still being withheld in the McKenna case.
The most encouraging sign of
progress is the establishment of a commission to review police policies
governing the use of force and the department’s disclosure of information in
shootings by officers. The broadly representative commission, created at the
instigation of Sharon Bulova, the Democratic chair of the county’s Board of
Supervisors, is to issue its recommendations by Oct. 1.
At the same time, the
supervisors have made known their displeasure with their lawyers in the county
attorney’s office, whom they blame for advising the police not to cooperate
with county prosecutors investigating Mr. Geer’s death. Yet by focusing their
ire almost exclusively on a deputy county attorney who was handling the case —
Cynthia L. Tianti, a 25-year veteran of the office — they seem to have settled
on a scapegoat. Do not the police chief, Edwin C. Roessler Jr., and the county
attorney himself, David P. Bobzien, deserve at least equal shares of the blame
for months of obstruction and foot-dragging?
In the death of Ms. McKenna, a
mother of a young daughter, the supervisors may have somewhat less leverage.
The jail guards under investigation, who have not been disciplined in any way,
are employees of the sheriff’s office, led by the independently elected
sheriff, Stacey Kincaid.
Their actions preceding Ms.
McKenna’s death are under investigation by the police. But the policies of the
sheriff’s department governing the use of force, including deployment of stun
guns and extraction of inmates from their cells, are not subject to county
review. That means it is up to Sheriff Kincaid to launch an assessment of how
deputies at the county jail go about their jobs, with an eye to ensuring that
incidents like the one culminating with the death of Ms. McKenna do not recur.
Rather than repeat the police department’s stonewalling mistake, she should act
to initiate that assessment.
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