Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger is facing criticism over her public safety and immigration policies after an illegal immigrant who fatally stabbed a woman at a Fairfax County bus stop was found to have a lengthy arrest history.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, has been charged with the murder of Stephanie Minter, 41, of Fredericksburg, in an attack at a bus stop shelter Monday night, the Fairfax County Police Department said, according to Fox News.
Officers found Minter with stab wounds to her upper body, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Jalloh, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone, has a criminal history of more than 30 arrests, according to the Department of Homeland Security, including for rape, malicious wounding, assault, identity theft, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, assault and pick-pocketing, station WFMD reports.
Surveillance cameras captured Jalloh exiting a bus with Minter near Richmond Highway and Arlington Drive shortly before the murder.
Authorities arrested him the next day at a liquor store after an employee called 911, initially taking him into custody for alleged shoplifting before investigators linked him to the homicide a day later.
Investigators said they were still working to determine a motive for the killing.
Online court records show Jalloh has more than a dozen arrests in northern Virginia, including charges of petty larceny and malicious wounding. In most of those cases, prosecutors reportedly dropped the charges.
Laura Birnbaum, chief of staff for Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, said the defendant was known to prosecutors and that the office was “acutely aware of the risk he posed to the community.”
Birnbaum said the office secured a conviction against Jalloh in a 2023 malicious wounding case and sought to have him held in custody during later encounters with the criminal justice system.
Birnbaum added that Jalloh had a history of selecting victims with no fixed address and said prosecutors in several cases were unable to proceed because victims could not be located or contacted.
Minter was a “happy, jolly” person and “a beam of light in dark places,” according to an obituary.
The murder has drawn political attention as federal officials criticized policies in Virginia that they say limit cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration enforcement.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Gov. Spanberger ended all 287(g) agreements in Virginia on Feb. 4, referring to partnerships that allow local law enforcement agencies to assist federal immigration authorities in identifying and processing people for removal.
The department said the change makes the state less safe and requires federal officers to take a more visible role in apprehending suspects released from local custody.
In a statement released ahead of Spanberger’s response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said DHS officers under the current administration have removed more than 700,000 illegal immigrants from American communities and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is targeting individuals accused or convicted of serious crimes.
Bis also said sanctuary politicians, including Spanberger, have tried to slow ICE operations and have chosen to release criminal suspects from local jails into communities. Federal officials maintain that cooperation between local agencies and DHS expands the resources available to arrest people accused of immigration violations.
The department pointed to enforcement outcomes in other states, citing 40,000 arrests in Florida, where local agencies cooperate with DHS and a recent two-week operation in West Virginia that resulted in more than 650 arrests.
DHS also said seven of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE.
Federal officials listed several individuals they identified as criminal illegal immigrants in custody or facing charges in separate cases, including people convicted of offenses such as murder, sexual crimes against minors and other violent felonies.
Authorities in Fairfax County said the investigation into Minter’s murder remains ongoing as they continue to review evidence and seek to determine what led to the fatal stabbing.
