{"id":157706,"date":"2025-11-28T16:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/157706\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T16:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:41:11","slug":"national-guard-soldier-sarah-beckstrom-has-died-after-washington-dc-shooting-trump-washington-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/157706\/","title":{"rendered":"National guard soldier Sarah Beckstrom has died after Washington DC shooting \u2013 Trump | Washington DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of two US national guard soldiers shot in a targeted attack near the White House this week has died, while the second is fighting for his life, Donald Trump<\/a> has announced.<\/p>\n

As part of his Thanksgiving call to US troops late on Thursday, the US president said he had been informed that Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had succumbed to her wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the guardsmen that we\u2019re talking about, highly respected, young, magnificent person \u2026 She\u2019s just passed away. She\u2019s no longer with us,\u201d Trump said in his first live remarks since the shooting on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump added that the second guard member, Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, was \u201cfighting for his life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, is \u2018fighting for his life\u2019, Trump said. Photograph: Nathan Howard\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The alleged assailan , Rahmanullah Lakanwal<\/a>, 29, will now face upgraded charges as a result of Beckstrom\u2019s death, said Jeanne Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

Lakanwal, 29, would \u201cnow be charged with murder in the first-degree\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Fox News,<\/a> Pirro anticipated that as the investigation progressed, authorities would find out \u201cwhat actually happened in terms of this individual even being in this country and being in a position to ambush and shoot down an innocent young woman who was doing her duty\u201d.<\/p>\n

A day earlier, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said she would urge prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had worked for CIA-backed anti-terrorism units and was admitted to the US in 2021 under a post-Afghan war resettlement program. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell you right now, I will tell you early, we will do everything in our power to seek the death penalty against that monster who should not have been in our country,\u201d Bondi said.<\/p>\n

Beckstrom\u2019s father had told the New York Times<\/a> in a phone call earlier in the day that his daughter was unlikely to recover. \u201cI\u2019m holding her hand right now,\u201d Gary Beckstrom said. \u201cShe has a mortal wound. It\u2019s not going to be a recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckstrom and Wolfe belonged to the West Virginia national guard, which deployed hundreds of troops to Washington as part of Trump\u2019s controversial crime-fighting mission in the capital.<\/p>\n

Beckstrom, from Webster Springs, West Virginia, entered service in June 2023. West Virginia\u2019s governor, Patrick Morrisey, said in a social media post that Beckstrom had \u201cserved with courage, extraordinary resolve and an unwavering sense of duty to her state and to her nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Investigators are looking into motives on the part of the suspect, who was shot at the scene by a third guard member and is being treated in hospital. His wounds are not believed to be life-threatening.<\/p>\n

Rahmanullah Lakanwal\u2019s photo was shared at a press conference in Washington DC after the shooting. Photograph: Nathan Howard\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Lakanwal, who Trump has called a \u201csavage monster\u201d, was part of a CIA-backed unit<\/a> in Afghanistan before he came to the US in 2021 under a resettlement programme launched after the chaotic US withdrawal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officials have confirmed Lakanwal arrived under a programme that gave some Afghans who had worked for the US government entry visas. He was granted asylum in April this year, under the Trump administration, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

A resident of eastern Afghanistan who identified himself as Lakanwal\u2019s cousin told the Associated Press that he was originally from the province of Khost. The cousin, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said Lakanwal had worked in a special Afghan army unit.<\/p>\n

A former official from the unit, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal was a team leader and his brother was a platoon leader.<\/p>\n

The cousin said Lakanwal started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012, and was later promoted to become a team leader and a GPS specialist.<\/p>\n

The suspect\u2019s former landlord, Kristina Widman, said he had been living in Washington state with his wife and five children.<\/p>\n

Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington DC<\/a>, said at a news conference on Thursday that Lakanwal drove across the country to launch an \u201cambush-style\u201d attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. The suspect shot one guard member twice before turning to fire at the second, she said.<\/p>\n

The FBI director, Kash Patel, told the news conference the agency was investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. Law enforcement agencies had executed search warrants at the suspect\u2019s home in Washington and in San Diego, California.<\/p>\n

\"JDJD Vance addresses DC shootings at army base in Kentucky \u2013\u00a0video<\/p>\n

The US has perennially high numbers of mass shootings, which have prompted many to call for more substantial gun control. A study released earlier this year<\/a> found that one in 15 Americans has witnessed a mass shooting.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe Lakanwal acted alone. He is one of roughly 76,000 Afghans brought to the US through the resettlement programme, many of whom worked alongside US troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators.<\/p>\n

Supporters have said candidates were extensively vetted. But the initiative has drawn intense criticism from Republicans over what they have argued<\/a> are gaps in the vetting process and the speed of admissions.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the national guard shooting, Trump was quick to cast the blame on the Biden administration, accusing it of failing to properly vet migrants from Afghanistan. And he later said he would \u201cpermanently pause migration<\/a> from all third world countries\u201d, without specifying how.<\/p>\n

After the shooting, Trump said he would send 500 more national guard troops to Washington DC. It is not clear where the additional troops would come from.<\/p>\n

A federal judge last week ordered an end to the guard deployment<\/a> but also put her order on hold for 21 days to allow the Trump administration time to either remove the troops or appeal.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of two US national guard soldiers shot in a targeted attack near the White House this week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-157706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}