By Hannah Saunders
Two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in Washington, D.C. November 26, the day before Thanksgiving, by Washington state resident Rahmanullah Lakanwal. The victims were in critical condition in the hospital, but Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries on Thanksgiving Day. Lakanwal is now facing charges of murder in the First Degree.
“[The suspect is] a 29-year-old Afghan who entered the United States under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome, a program following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. He resided in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and, we believe, five children,” Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney in D.C., said during a press conference on Thursday.
Pirro said this attack was unprovoked and targeted, and that Lakanwal used a .357 revolver to shoot the National Guard members. She added that other National Guard members were in the area and responded by shooting the suspect, who was taken to a hospital and is currently in custody. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still in critical condition as of November 28.
Both guard members volunteered to deploy to the nation’s capital in August under Trump’s crime-fighting agenda, which includes taking over the local police department. Pirro said Lakanwal drove from Washington state to D.C. “with the intended target of coming to our nation’s capital.”
“We should not have to live in fear in the nation’s capital, especially by one who came here from a foreign country, through a process that was so absurd that he came through and [was] released into this country…knowing virtually nothing about his vetting. This is what happens in this country when people are allowed in and not properly vetted,” she added.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Fox News on November 26 that Lakanwal came to the U.S. in September 2021 under the Biden administration “due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation.”
The U.S. military was in Afghanistan for 20 years, and Biden oversaw the withdrawal, which included Operation Allies Welcome— a program that allowed thousands of Afghans who opposed the Taliban a safe space outside of the country.
“That individual— and so many others— should have never been allowed to come here,” Ratcliffe told Fox. “Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures.”
A relative of Lakanwal told NBC that he was allegedly granted asylum under the Trump administration this year, and that he served in the Afghan army for about a decade. NBC also reported that he previously worked as an independent contractor for Amazon’s delivery service, Amazon Flex.
“As the President of the United States, I am determined to ensure that the animal who perpetrated this atrocity pays the steepest possible price,” Trump said on the day of the shooting. “The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t want to even know about. No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.”
He continued:
“We must now reevaluate every single alien who has entered our country, from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country. If they don’t love our country, we don’t want them. America will never bend and will never yield in the face of terror and in the same time, we will not be deterred from the mission the service members were nobly fulfilling.”
Trump also announced that he would be deploying an additional 500 troops to D.C., although the shooting would not have happened if National Guard troops were not deployed in the first place.
On Thanksgiving, Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund issued a statement on Facebook that said the city’s police department and government are working closely with the feds.
“As mayor of Bellingham, I am directing local resources to be ready to support the FBI’s investigation. We share the resolve to see justice and accountability for this violent attack.
“The terrible actions committed in Washington, D.C. yesterday are the actions of one person, not a community. They don’t represent Bellingham’s values. They don’t reflect the values of either Washington. They don’t represent what makes our communities great.”
On the day of the shooting, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson posted on Facebook that his “prayers are with the National Guard members who were attacked in Washington, D.C. today. Grateful to the first responders, and to the men and women of our National Guard,” but has otherwise remained silent.
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