On November 26, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, both part of the West Virginia National Guard, were shot by a gunman who was patrolling a few blocks from the White House. Both were rushed to the hospital immediately after the attack, and while Wolfe was able to get away with a few injuries, Beckstrom sadly passed away.
The current suspect for the attack is Rahmanullah Lakanwal. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan man, previously served in an “elite counterterrorism unit”, according to NPR and AfghanEvac. Lakanwal’s unit worked for the CIA and fought the Taliban for the U.S. government, AfghanEvac states.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that Lakanwal, who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021, was admitted into the U.S. due to his work with the U.S. Government. He arrived in the U.S. under humanitarian parole, and he applied for asylum under the Biden administration, and was granted asylum in April of 2025, under the Trump administration.
During a press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel said that Lakanwal’s involvement with U.S./allied forces in Afghanistan would be included in the investigation.
Beckstrom grew up in Webster Springs, with a population of just 800. In this part of West Virginia, jobs for someone graduating high school are hard to find, especially considering the rapid decline of coal mining. According to Kenny Kidd, Beckstrom’s school bus driver, the Guard is a good idea for young adults financially. According to NPR, Kidd has stated that “the bonuses can help put them through college, the pay from monthly drills and annual training are much-needed money in their pockets. Then there’s the extra pay from deployments, like the one to D.C., where the West Virginia Guard has more soldiers per capita than any other state.”
Similar to Beckstrom, Air Force Staff Sergeant Jason Mitchell says it was the need to pay off college debt that brought Wolfe to the National Guard. At Martinsburg High School, the town in which Wolfe grew up, guidance counselor, Charity Powers, advises seniors. Powers stated “I think in this area, especially for kids who are kind of disadvantaged, which we have a lot of those students, [the Guard] a really good opportunity for them.”
This tragic event has brought attention, both good and bad, to President Trump’s National Guard deployments to American cities by politicians and West Virginians alike.
Trump has said the deployments are necessary in order to fight crime. Since the start of these deployments, Democratic leaders and federal judges have questioned whether they are truly legal. Recently, however, in largely Republican West Virginia, many have started questioning the need for sending troops to D.C.
Roseanna Groves, who lives in Webster Springs and is related to Beckstrom, was outraged, and says that “I feel it was crazy, I really do” when referring to the deployment of the West Virginia National Guard. Kidd, the bus driver, agrees with her. He told NPR that he believes “it’s turned into a lot more political than anything else.”
According to NPR Mike Pushkin, a West Virginia House of Delegates member and chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, says Beckstrom and Wolfe “would not be there had it not been for the president calling in the National Guard in this strange form of political theater and it unfortunately put them in harm’s way.”
For the time being, the West Virginia National Guard is still posted in D.C. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has stated that Lakanwal will hopefully be charged with terrorism for his attack, but for now he is also in the hospital.
