John Geer, standing in his doorway, minutes before he was shot by a Fairfax County Police officer. Photo courtesy of Michael Lieberman
Thirty days after a court order by Fairfax Circuit Court judge Randy Bellows, Fairfax County has produced documents concerning the shooting death of John Geer.
Michael Lieberman, the lawyer representing Geer’s longtime partner Maura Harrington in a civil suit against the county, said several DVDs containing digital copies of documents were set to be delivered to them by courier in the evening on Jan. 21.
Judge Bellows issued the order following a Dec. 19, 2014 hearing. Fairfax County had previously refused to produce the vast majority of documents Lieberman requested in the case.
Geer was shot Aug. 29, 2013 by PFC Adam Torres of the Fairfax County Police Department.
He had been standing in the doorway of his Springfield home with arms resting above his head on the frame, speaking with police officers. As Geer began to lower his hands, he was shot in the chest and died in his house without receiving medical attention.
The 127 requests from Lieberman include a variety of police documentation of the day of the shooting, from blood pattern analysis to witness reports to radio correspondence records. Though Bellows didn’t order 100 percent of the requests be produced, Lieberman expects the information they do get should reveal much more about what happened.
For nearly 17 months, FCPD had kept this information from the Geer family and the public. Releasing it, they’ve said, would have interfered with the state and federal investigations of the case.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, with authority over Chief of Police Edwin Roessler and the department, had also been tight-lipped on details of the shooting. On Jan. 5, the Chairman Sharon Bulova and Roessler released a statement that named the officer involved.
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