Fairfax officials determining costs of changes in police department
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Version 0 of 1. Fairfax County officials are working to figure out costs and other factors behind scores of changes to the county police department that were recommended by a commission assembled after controversy over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man. During a meeting on public safety Tuesday, county leaders showed a willingness to implement some of the more controversial changes — namely, creating a citizen’s complaint review board and hiring an independent auditor to monitor the handling of police-involved shootings and other serious investigations. “That sounds like a good thing for us to create or a good thing to have in Fairfax County,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said about both ideas. Bulova formed the commission this year in response to public anger over how officials handled the probe into the 2013 fatal shooting of John Geer. Adam D. Torres, the officer who shot Geer, is facing a charge of second-degree murder in Fairfax’s Circuit Court. He was fired in July. [Torres faints during Fairfax court room bond hearing] The investigation into Geer’s death revealed gaps in how Virginia’s largest jurisdiction handles police-involved shootings and how county officials relay information about serious police incidents to the public — shortfalls that the police commission addressed in 142 recommendations to be considered by the board of supervisors. At Tuesday’s meeting, Merni Fitzgerald, the county’s former public information officer, said communication failures with the public and the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney are among the county’s most urgent problems. “Communications broke down every place, it seems,” during the Geer investigation, said Fitzgerald, who chaired a commission subcommittee that recommended improving police department transparency and making the department more responsive to public inquiries. Other recommendations include requiring Fairfax police officers to wear body cameras that record interactions with the public and ramping up efforts to diversify the county police force. Police chief Ed Roessler expressed support for the changes but added that the costs of implementing them are still unknown. Roessler said his department had already begun implementing some of the recommendations. For example, the department is training officers to “take a deep breath” before engaging with a suspect and think about how to avoid a violent confrontation. “Obviously, that’s the goal; preservation of human life,” Roessler said. Some county supervisors expressed worries that the changes would either be too costly to implement or that the process of seeing them through would be overly complicated. “Let’s be careful that we don’t get bogged down,” said Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason.) The board is to formally vote on the process of implementing some of the ideas on Nov. 17. |