A 29-year-old Afghan national has been charged with first-degree murder after allegedly opening fire on two West Virginia National Guard members near a downtown Washington, D.C., Metro station on Wednesday, killing one soldier and critically wounding another. The attack has prompted the Trump administration to pause decisions on asylum applications and announce broader reviews of immigration and vetting policies.
The shooting occurred on Wednesday near the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., where West Virginia National Guard members were patrolling as part of a broader federal security deployment. According to multiple news reports and law enforcement officials, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national, allegedly opened fire on the troops, striking Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of Webster County, West Virginia, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom later succumbed to her injuries, while Wolfe remains in very critical condition.
Another soldier returned fire and helped subdue Lakanwal at the scene. A law enforcement official told the New York Post, as reported by The Daily Wire, that Lakanwal underwent surgery the night of the incident and is expected to make a full recovery so he can stand trial.
Federal officials say Lakanwal entered the United States from Afghanistan in 2021. According to reporting by NPR and affiliated public radio stations, advocacy groups and former colleagues have said Lakanwal previously worked with a CIA-linked counterterrorism unit, and that his work helped qualify him for resettlement after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He came under a special immigration program for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces, though some details of his status and the vetting process remain under review by federal authorities.
At a press event following Beckstrom’s death, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that the charges against Lakanwal had been upgraded to include first-degree murder. “There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” Pirro said, describing the attack as an ambush in which the Guardsmen “didn’t know what was coming,” according to an interview reported by The Daily Wire. Pirro has also indicated that prosecutors are examining whether the suspect could face the federal death penalty if the case meets statutory criteria.
Authorities say the motive for the attack remains under investigation. Officials have said they are reviewing Lakanwal’s travel in the weeks before the shooting and scrutinizing any possible radicalization, but no definitive motive has been publicly identified.
In the aftermath of the attack, President Donald Trump announced a series of proposed changes to immigration policy. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, described by The Daily Wire and discussed in NPR’s “Week in Politics,” Trump called for a “halt to migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.” He also pledged to review the vetting of Afghans and other foreign nationals who entered the United States during or after the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and vowed to “deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Separately, NPR has reported that the administration has ordered a pause on decisions in pending asylum cases while agencies review vetting procedures. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not publicly released full details of the pause, and some aspects of how it will be implemented remain unclear. Officials have also indicated that immigration requests from some Afghan nationals will face additional scrutiny, though a blanket suspension of all Afghan-related processing has not been formally announced.
West Virginia officials have publicly mourned Beckstrom and praised both Guardsmen. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey — a leading statewide official — described Beckstrom as a hero who volunteered for the D.C. mission and said her death represented the “ultimate sacrifice,” according to local and national media accounts. Community members in Webster County have held vigils in her honor.
Beckstrom’s father, Gary, paid tribute to his daughter in a Facebook post, calling her his “baby girl” and writing that she had “passed to glory,” language that has been widely cited in coverage of the shooting.
Security procedures for National Guard patrols in the nation’s capital have also been tightened. NPR, citing federal and local officials, reports that every group of National Guard members patrolling city streets will now be accompanied by at least one D.C. police officer. The order does not apply to areas outside the Metropolitan Police Department’s jurisdiction, such as national monuments, the U.S. Capitol grounds or transit locations, which are policed by other agencies.
The political fallout from the shooting has been immediate. Former Democratic National Committee chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz criticized Trump’s policy response, arguing that he is using the attack to deflect from broader questions about deployments of Guard troops and gun violence. In comments reported by The Daily Wire and other outlets, she said the president “looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies…and it’s pretty disgusting,” and called for more effective vetting of immigrants as well as a reassessment of domestic security and firearms policy.
As the investigation continues, authorities say Lakanwal remains hospitalized under guard but is expected to survive, clearing the way for him to face first-degree murder and related charges in connection with the deadly ambush on Beckstrom and Wolfe.
