The suspect in Wednesday’s horrific shooting in Washington, D.C., is expected to survive according to a local law enforcement official.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, opened fire on National Guard soldiers just blocks from the White House and struck two of them, one fatally. Another soldier returned fire, injuring and then subduing Lakanwal at the scene. An unnamed law enforcement official told The New York Post that the Afghan national had undergone surgery but was expected to make a full recovery.
“I think the guy’s going to live. Nobody’s going to be able to say anything and he’s going to stand trial,” the official said, adding, “I know that he underwent surgery the night it happened.”
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Meanwhile, SPC Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia has succumbed to her injuries — and Andrew Wolfe, the other National Guardsman who was shot, continues to fight for his life. Following the news that Beckstrom had died, 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. “It is a premeditated murder. There was an ambush with a gun toward people who didn’t know what was coming.”
President Donald Trump, upon learning that Lakanwal was an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021 following former President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, took immediate action and declared a halt to “migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.”
Trump also called for a review of the vetting process for those who entered the United States during and after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and promised that his administration would “deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”