Police Killings & Divine Duties

The deaths late last year by police action in Ferguson and Staten Island ignited national controversy due to the racial component. A 2013 police killing in Northern Virginia has gained local but not national attention. It has no racial component or larger political narrative. But it illustrates the moral complexity of lethal force by law enforcement.

John Geer ignited a police confrontation when he, apparently after imbibing, began angrily throwing his longtime live-in girlfriend’s belongings out of their house, after an argument, prompting her call to police. When police arrived he brandished a holstered but loaded gun, and he threatened to use it before retreating into his house. A police investigator learned that Geer had threatened suicide by police gun fire, and that he had other weapons in the house, which later turned out to be seven guns.

A police negotiator conversed with Geer across much of the 45 minute confrontation, while police surrounded the house. The holstered, loaded gun remained at Geer’s feet inside the house while he stood in the doorway, his hands grabbing the top of the storm door, telling officers he didn’t want to be shot, but also belligerently telling them to leave his property.

During Geer’s conversation with the negotiator, an officer, later explaining he saw Geer lower his hands from the storm door towards his waist, shot Geer, who retreated into the house behind a closed door, where his corpse was discovered over an hour later by a SWAT team, after a police robot had initially probed. Police, who believed they heard sounds inside, did not enter earlier out of concern that he was still conscious and armed.

Four other officers in the standoff later disputed that Geer’s hands had fallen towards his waist. One said they had barely left the door. Another said they were at face level. A third said they were at shoulder level. The negotiator insisted the hands were still raised. The police shooter later told investigators he had no regrets because he thought Geer may have had a gun on his waist.

The police shooter admitted having argued by phone with his wife while driving to the confrontation at Geer’s house but insisted that his shooting was unrelated to any anger with his wife. Earlier in the year the police shooter had a verbal confrontation at the court house with a prosecutor dissatisfied with the officer’s evidence in a drunk driving case, prompting the officer to angrily leave.

Recent media have focused on Fairfax County’s slow release of facts about the police shooting. A county prosecutor examining the shooting, frustrated by lack of county cooperation, has turned the case over to federal authorities. Geer’s father, who witnessed the shooting, and other family members, on behalf of Geer’s two daughters by his girlfriend, are suing the county for wrongful death. The lawsuit and other legal complexities have contributed to the county’s slow and incomplete release of information.

It seems unlikely that the police shooter will or should be prosecuted for a crime. He shot a belligerent and threatening man within reach of a gun who had not surrendered to police after a lengthy standoff. The deceased, according to several witnesses, did move his hands downward, if not as far as the police shooter claimed. At the same time, the police shooter likely lacks the temperament and judgment for law enforcement, acting precipitously in this confrontation while other officers did not shoot. His earlier court house verbal alteration with a prosecutor confirms his likely disqualifying traits.

There’s been lots of heated rhetoric over lethal police actions in recent months. Many of the critics expect impossible standards of near perfection. Police caused deaths, as a percentage of overall population and overall crime rates, are minuscule. Standards for police conduct should be high. But even in the best of circumstances there will be some debatable human judgments.

Christian teaching understands police, when performing properly for justice and order, as agents of God to restrain evil. This teaching entails both high expectations of them and also high respect for their authority. Police should not have to cavalierly risk their lives to satisfy unrealistic public expectations. Upon their safety depends not just the happiness and livelihoods of their own families but also the safety of many millions aspiring to live in relative security.

For several decades Americans have enjoyed plunging crime rates. Many of our cities cities are safer now than anytime since the 1950s. Much of this decline, which has spared tens of thousands from murder, rape and robbery, is due to effective law enforcement. Some have forgotten the soaring crime of the 1960s and 1970s. Some are too young to recall when millions quit the big cities partly because of crime.

Every violent death is tragic. But in almost all police killings, the deceased helped create the unfortunate situation resulting in death. It’s often easy to blame police, expecting them to have divine wisdom and judgment, along with infinite patience and courage. But they are just people with important and sometimes dangerous responsibilities. The details of the Fairfax County police shooting illustrate the sometimes frustrating absence of easy moral certainty when law and life collide.