{"id":317611,"date":"2025-11-27T23:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/317611\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:51:08","slug":"national-guard-member-shot-near-white-house-has-died-trump-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/317611\/","title":{"rendered":"National Guard member shot near White House has died, Trump says"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the two National Guard members shot in a \u201ctargeted\u201d ambush shooting Wednesday afternoon <\/a>blocks from the White House has died, President Donald Trump said Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds, Trump said during a Thanksgiving Day phone call with U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

The president said he received news of the death just before speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the guardsmen that we\u2019re talking about \u2014 highly respected, young, magnificent person, started service in June of 2023 outstanding in every way \u2014 she\u2019s just passed away, she\u2019s no longer with us. She\u2019s looking down at us right now,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The other National Guard member was identified as Andrew Wolfe, who Trump said was \u201cfighting for his life\u201d and \u201cin very bad shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both are from the West Virginia National Guard, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said at a Thursday news conference.<\/p>\n

Beckstrom and Wolfe were serving on the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Mission when they were shot around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday,<\/a> the West Virginia National Guard said in a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The shooting occurred less than 24 hours after they were deputized to maintain their status to conduct presence patrols, said a spokesperson for the joint task force investigating the shooting.<\/p>\n

Wolfe is hospitalized in critical condition. <\/p>\n

The suspected gunman, Rahmanullah Lakanwal<\/a>, was also shot and taken to a hospital. He faces three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and one count of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.<\/p>\n

The CIA said that Lakanwal, an Afghan national, worked with U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Wolfe, 24, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, entered service on Feb. 5, 2019, the joint task force said. He is a U.S. Air Force staff sergeant assigned to the Force Support Squadron, 167th Airlift Wing.<\/p>\n

Beckstrom, of Webster Springs, West Virginia, entered service on June 26, 2023. She was assigned to the 863rd Military Police Company, the 111th Engineer Brigade, and is a U.S. Army specialist.<\/p>\n

The National Guard said that they had been deployed to D.C. since August after Trump ordered troops to the city as part of his crackdown on crime.<\/p>\n

Beckstrom\u2019s father previously told The New York Times<\/a> that she had a \u201cmortal wound\u201d and likely wouldn\u2019t recover. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m holding her hand right now,\u201d Gary Beckstrom said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckstrom\u2019s family did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Jason Wolfe, Wolfe\u2019s father, declined to comment, but added, \u201cJust pray for my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.<\/p>\n

Marlene Lenthang contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the two National Guard members shot in a \u201ctargeted\u201d ambush shooting Wednesday afternoon blocks from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-317611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}