Suspect in Washington, DC, shooting charged with murder after soldier dies

Washington, DC – Washington, DC – A man allegedly assaulted two members of the National Guard in the country’s capital after one of his victims passed away from her injuries.

The US attorney for Washington, DC, Jeanine Pirro, made the updated charges known on Friday.

Two days prior to the White House, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, shot West Virginia National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, just blocks away.

Trump, the president’s representative, announced late on Thursday that Beckstrom, who had been stationed in the capital as part of his anti-crime campaign, had passed away.

The following day, Pirro announced that Washington state resident Lakanwal would face three counts of assault with the intent to kill while armed and three counts of firearm possession during a violent crime on the Fox and Friends TV program.

She stated on Friday that Lakanwal will be “further charged with murder in the first degree.”

“We are upgrading the initial charges from assault to murder in the first degree,” he said. “There are undoubtedly many more charges to come.

Prior to the attack, Attorney General Pam Bondi had stated that she would seek the death penalty for the deaths of either of the soldiers. The FBI has stated that it is looking into the “terrorism” attack.

Wolfe, a member of the National Guard, was still in critical condition on Friday.

“Collective punishment”

The Trump administration promised a widespread crackdown on immigration in the wake of the attack, as well as a revetting of immigrants who are already US citizens, with the addition of the upgraded charges.

The actions have been referred to as “collective punishment” by advocacy groups.

Trump expanded a previous decision to halt all immigration requests involving Afghan nationals in a social media post on Thursday night, adding that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.”

Trump added that he would “remove anyone who is incapable of loving our country or who is not a net asset to the United States.”

The administration had already stated that it would re-visit asylum seekers and refugees who had been admitted to the US under former president Joe Biden, with USCIS’s director declaring on Thursday that it would “completely reexamine every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern” in a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card.”

As more details about the alleged attacker, Lakanwal, become available, the policy changes are made.

During Biden’s Operation Afghans Welcome, tens of thousands of Afghans were relocated to the US after the withdrawal of Western forces, the Trump administration has repeatedly attributed the shooting to lax vetting practices.

According to reports in US media, Lakanwal was a member of an Afghan force called the “zero unit” that collaborated with the CIA in Afghanistan.

Lakanwal had mental health issues related to the unit’s actions, which included, among other abuses, extrajudicial and civilian killings, according to a friend who spoke to The New York Times.

Lakanawal applied for asylum in December 2024, according to a government report that was reviewed by the Reuters news agency.

However, the case was approved in April, a month after Trump’s second-term as president, with officials praising his efforts to fight in Afghanistan alongside the US. At the time, they discovered no discriminatory information.

Advocates claim that the Trump administration is accelerating immigration reform further.

According to critics, the crackdown targeted both migrant workers and vulnerable people, including refugees who sought refuge from persecution.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) San Francisco Bay Area chapter responded to the government’s decision on Thursday to stop processing Afghan immigration for immigration.

The organization argued that “people who flee violence, persecution, and instability deserve protection and due process, not to be vilified for the alleged acts of one person.”

The Afghan-American Foundation urged media and elected officials to respond responsibly.

Source: Aljazeera