Topline
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said Friday the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. will be charged with first-degree murder after U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, one of the two National Guard soldiers targeted in Wednesday’s shooting, died from her injuries.
This photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday.
Associated Press
Key Facts
In a Friday morning appearance on Fox News, Pirro said her office was “upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” noting, “There are certainly many more charges to come.”
The suspected shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, drove across country from his home in Washington with the intent to do harm, Pirro alleged, noting he will be charged with three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Lakanwal is an Afghan national who worked with the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan and came to the U.S. in 2021 under a Biden-era program before being granted asylum in 2025 under the Trump administraiton.
Pirro also spoke on the critical condition of Andrew Wolfe, the other National Guardsman who was shot Wednesday, and said, “We still have hope.”
President Donald Trump, who announced the death of Beckstrom in a publicly broadcast call with service members Thursday night, responded to Beckstrom’s death with lengthy social media attacks on immigration and said he will “permanently pause migration” from all “Third World Countries.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which completely halted Afghan immigration processing after the shooting, announced Thursday it will conduct “a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
Trump said the shooting underscored that the “single greatest national security threat facing our nation” was the millions of immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration, who he claimed were “unknown and unvetted.”
Trump said his administration will now “re-examine every single” Afghan immigrant who entered the country under Biden and remove anyone “who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country.”
What Did Trump Say About Afghan Immigrants In The U.s.?
While addressing reporters and the troops from Mar-A-Lago on Thursday, Trump showed a photo of Afghans fleeing their country, packed onboard a U.S. military cargo plane, and said: “This is what we had under the Biden administration. That whole thing should have never, ever happened.” When a reporter mentioned that the suspected gunman had worked with the CIA and had been properly vetted, Trump responded, saying, “He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts. And that happens, too. It happens too often with these people.” When asked if he was blaming all Afghans for one person’s actions, the president said, “No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans.” The president also said his administration was “looking at” the possibility of deporting the suspected shooter’s family who live in Washington state.
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