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Unarmed, cooperating man shot in own home
Quote:
White privilege didn't protect John Geer. That's not to say he didn't have it. But Geer, pierced 18 months ago by a police bullet as he stood inside the screen door of his own home, his hands raised, begging not to be shot, simply disappeared into the emotional mixing bowl of American news and political priorities.
He committed no crime the day he was killed. Even the officer who shot him acknowledges that. There was no struggle. The details are not murky.
In August 2013, Geer's common law wife, who was breaking up with him and moving out, called police to report he was angrily throwing her possessions onto his front lawn.
Two squad cars — four officers — initially responded. Geer, on seeing them, retreated into his home, refusing to answer questions.
A few minutes later, Officer Rodney Barnes, a trained police negotiator, arrived, and as the four other policemen stood close behind him with weapons drawn, he began trying to coax John Geer out onto the porch. Geer was polite, but reluctant to leave his home, saying repeatedly he was frightened of being killed.
He said "I don't want anybody to get hurt," the negotiator told investigators a few months later. "I don't want to get shot. I know I can get shot'
Barnes asked Geer if he owned a pistol. Geer said yes, and fetched it. He held it up, holstered, for Barnes to see and set it aside, raising his hands again. He offered to let Barnes come into the house and retrieve the weapon.
He asked for permission to scratch his nose, Barnes said, and did it slowly, then raised his hands again. He asked to reach into his pocket for his phone; Barnes asked him not to, and he obeyed.
"He said 'I know if I reach down or drop my hands I can get shot," Barnes told detectives later. "I said, hey, nobody's going to shoot you…"
But Geer pointed to one nearby officer in particular: Adam Torres, who kept raising his Sig Sauer pistol from the "ready" position (pointed at Geer's legs) to aim at Geer's chest.
Please ask him not to point his gun at me, Geer begged Barnes. Geer even offered to come out and be handcuffed voluntarily if Torres and the other patrolmen would agree to move "way back."
Then he asked to scratch his nose again. Barnes consented. And Torres fired.
Geer, grabbing his wound, screamed in pain and stepped back, slamming his door.
"And I'm like, who the **** shot?" Barnes told detectives later.
Asked by Barnes why he'd fired, Torres said Geer had dropped his hands to his waist suddenly, that he appeared to be going for a weapon.
"I said I didn't see that," said Barnes later. "You know, and I never took my eye off him (Geer)."
The other three officers who'd been present told investigators the same thing. So did two civilian witnesses. But prosecutors and police commanders and county officials buried the case.
Federal investigators did investigate, and have reported to the U.S. attorney in Virginia, who has done nothing. And all this was done under a cloak of secrecy, until, earlier this month, a judge finally ordered disclosure of nearly 11,000 documents, containing interviews with nearly everyone involved.
Torres, it turns out, stuck to his story that the other four officers were wrong.
Does he regret having shot Geer? "I don't feel sorry for shooting the guy at all."
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/in-fair...ting-1.2960995
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