This masthead saw a person being stretchered into a waiting ambulance just after 2.30pm, and about eight National Guard troops running to the scene. Several blocks around the shooting site were blocked to traffic.
Carroll said the troops were on patrol when “a suspect came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged it at the National Guard members”.
Local police and the Secret Service sped to the scene, which was two blocks from the White House.Credit: AP
Other troops nearby were able to subdue the suspect and take him into custody, Carroll said, and were aided by other members of law enforcement who attended the scene.
District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser said it was clearly a “targeted shooting”. There were no additional suspects, officials said, and it was believed the shooter acted alone.
The White House was placed on lockdown, though Trump was away in Florida. Trump posted on TruthSocial about the shootings soon after and said the “animal” who was responsible would “pay a very steep price”.
“God bless our Great National Guard, and all of our Military and Law Enforcement. These are truly Great People. I, as President of the United States, and everyone associated with the Office of the Presidency, am with you!” he said.
Hundreds of National Guard members from the district and several states have been patrolling the nation’s capital after Trump in August issued an emergency order in the capital, federalising the local police force and sending in the guard.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday (AEDT) said Trump had instructed him to send an additional 500 National Guard troops to the streets of Washington.
He called it a “cowardly, dastardly act targeting the best of America – heroes willing to serve people they don’t know and they’ve never met because they love their country and their capital and their community”.
The attack would only stiffen the Trump administration’s resolve, Hegseth said. “We will never back down, we will secure our capital, we will secure our cities.”
Law enforcement officers in Washington after two National Guard soldiers were shot near the White House.Credit: AP
A witness, Stacey Walters, said she heard the shots while she was sitting in an Uber heading to her dry cleaner.
“I literally heard the ‘boom boom’, two shots,” she said.
She did not see who was shot nor the shooter, but said she saw people running – including uniformed men with guns, believed to be the Secret Service. “Then I heard, ‘Help, help’.”
With Reuters, AP
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