An unidentified man in military fatigues lies on a stretcher inside an ambulance November 26, 2025 in downtown Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
Drew Angerer | AFP | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Two\u00a0National\u00a0Guard\u00a0soldiers were shot on Wednesday near the White House in what officials described as a targeted ambush, and the suspect was in custody after suffering gunshot wounds during the attack.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump was in Florida at the time of the attack, which prompted the White House to go into lockdown as law enforcement from multiple federal and city agencies swarmed the area.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Guard\u00a0soldiers were part of a “high-visibility patrol” around 2:15 p.m. near the corner of 17th and I streets, a few blocks from the White House, when the suspect came around a corner and “ambushed” them,\u00a0Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Carroll said\u00a0at a press briefing.<\/p>\n
After an exchange of gunfire, other\u00a0Guard\u00a0members were able to subdue the suspect, he said. The two wounded soldiers\u00a0were in critical condition\u00a0at local hospitals, FBI Director Kash Patel\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
“This is a targeted attack,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said\u00a0at the briefing.<\/p>\n
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey had initially said in a post on X that both victims were members of his state’s\u00a0National\u00a0Guard\u00a0and had died from their injuries. But he soon posted a second statement that cited “conflicting reports” about their condition.<\/p>\n
The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear, but officials said they\u00a0believe the shooter acted alone.\u00a0The identities of the suspect and the victims have not been made public.<\/p>\n
Trump is at his resort in Palm Beach ahead of Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance is in Kentucky.<\/p>\n
In a social media post, Trump called the suspected shooter an “animal” who would “pay a very steep price” and praised the\u00a0National\u00a0Guard.<\/p>\n
The shooting unfolded near Farragut Square, a popular lunch spot for office workers just a few blocks away from the White House. The park, where light posts are wrapped in wreaths and bows for the holiday season, is flanked by fast-casual restaurants and a coffee shop, as well as two metro stops.<\/p>\n
Witnesses described a chaotic scene after shots were fired with pedestrians fleeing.<\/p>\n
Mike Ryan, 55, said he was on his way to buy lunch nearby when he heard what sounded like gunfire. He ran half a block away and heard another round of apparent gunfire.<\/p>\n
When he made his way back to the scene, he saw two\u00a0National\u00a0Guard\u00a0members on the ground across the street, with people trying to resuscitate one of them. At the same time, other\u00a0National\u00a0Guard\u00a0members had pinned someone on the ground, Ryan said.<\/p>\n
Another witness, Emma McDonald, said she saw one of the\u00a0Guard\u00a0members carried away on a stretcher minutes after the shooting, his head covered in blood and an automated compression system attached to his chest.<\/p>\n
National\u00a0Guard\u00a0soldiers have been in Washington since August, when Trump deployed them to the streets as part of his contentious immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, there were about 2,200\u00a0National\u00a0Guard\u00a0troops in Washington, including contingents from the District of Columbia as well as Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama.<\/p>\n
Trump, a Republican, has suggested repeatedly that crime has disappeared from the capital as a result of the deployment, which was opposed by local officials and heavily criticized by Democrats.<\/p>\n
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters that Trump had asked for 500 additional\u00a0Guard\u00a0soldiers to be deployed to Washington in the wake of the shooting.<\/p>\n
National Guard soldiers stand behind the crime scene tape at a corner in downtown Washington, DC, on November 26, 2025. <\/p>\n
Drew Angerer | AFP | Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unidentified man in military fatigues lies on a stretcher inside an ambulance November 26, 2025 in downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15327,739,37535,265,28763,409,28,30,29,99],"class_list":["post-62184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-breaking-news-politics","tag-business-news","tag-charles-schumer","tag-crime","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}