Fairfax County Police Watch: Officials shy from answers for Fairfax Co. community after accused murderer flees country

by Robert Locklear

Wed, August 19, 2026 at 10:24 PM

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Residents in Fairfax County were left in the dark for more than a month after a man in a murder case, also an illegal immigrant, escaped the country during a 48-hour release.

7News has been reporting on the situation over the past few days since we learned of the escape of the man, Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda.

But when we've approached officials to ask why the community wasn't alerted, we've only been met with finger-pointing and little to no clarity.

We started with the Fairfax Police, asking why the public was not notified, and if there's standard procedure for escapes like this one.

Instead of answering our questions, police sent us to the Department of Behavioral Health and the Falls Church Community Services Board.

When we reached out to the Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney's Office, we were directed back to the Department of Behavioral Health.

7 News did receive the following statement from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health:

"Federal and State privacy laws prevent DBHDS from discussing any information about individual patients and their cases. However, I can give you general information about the community pass process in Virginia law for Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity patients. Courts determine whether an individual remains committed or is released. While an individual remains committed, Virginia law provides for DBHDS clinical teams to request graduated privileges as part of treatment, based on clinical and public-safety assessments, that are reviewed and approved by a panel of experts before they progress to the next step."

We also contacted the Department of Homeland Security, since Toshpulodzoda was an illegal immigrant, but even DHS did not answer our specific questions, instead mentioning that he had "self-departed back to his home country of Tajikistan, in ultimate compliance of his final removal order."

Meanwhile, the experts we spoke to not only said the timeline of events was concerning but that the situation happening at all was unsettling.

"People need to know what happened here, why it happened," said John Fishwick, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. "I think the big question is why he was permitted to get a passport in this situation. If you know someone like this is going to have a passport, you need to be sure folks at the airports know he can't leave the state of Virginia."

We're still waiting to hear back from the various agencies and departments we reached out to.

For now, there's still a bench warrant out for Toshpulodzoda's arrest.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.