The Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard troops, seriously wounding one and killing another, will be charged with first-degree murder, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Friday.
Pirro said during an interview on “Fox and Friends” that 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal will face the upgraded charge after National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard died after she was shot on Wednesday. Lakanwal is accused of shooting both Beckstrom and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe with a handgun while they patrolled the streets of Washington, D.C.
“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. “It is a premeditated murder. There was an ambush with a gun toward people who didn’t know what was coming.”
Pirro added that the investigation into how the deadly shooting was still ongoing.
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“And we are hoping that the more information we can get and the more investigation that is going on, 24/7… the more we will find out about what actually happened in terms of this individual, even being in this country and being in a position to ambush and shoot down an innocent young woman who was doing her duty to the people of this country.”
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Beckstrom had died of her injuries.
“She’s no longer with us, she’s looking down on us right now,” Trump said. “Her parents are with her. This just happened. She was savagely attacked, she’s dead, not with us. Incredible person. Outstanding in every single way, in every department. Just horrible.”
Pirro said Friday that there was “hope” about Wolfe’s condition but that he was “still in critical condition.”
“We are doing everything we can to assist his family and to make sure that they have everything they need during this difficult time for them,” Pirro told “Fox and Friends.” “We are all praying for Andrew Wolfe.”
Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 as part of President Joe Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome,” which — as The Daily Wire previously reported — allowed roughly 77,000 Afghan nationals into the country. Trump said on Thursday that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover” and “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions.”