A NATIONAL Guard member who was shot by a crazed gunman near the White House has died from their injuries, Donald Trump has announced.
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, passed away after she was shot twice while out on patrol near the Farragut West Metro Station in Northwest Washington DC on the Thanksgiving eve.
Trump sadly announced that she had passed away at the beginning of an event on Thursday speaking to troops to celebrate Thanksgiving.
He said: “I must unfortunately tell you… that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia… she’s just passed away.”
The President called her a “magnificent person” who was “highly respected” and “outstanding in everyway”.
“It’s horrible,” he said, adding that the other National Guardsman who was shot Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life”.
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Beckstrom sustained a “mortal wound” after suffering two gunshot wounds, one in the chest and another to the head.
Gary Beckstrom, the father of the heroic National Guard member, told The New York Times it was unlikely his daughter was going to pull through.
“I’m holding her hand right now,” Gary told the outlet.
“She has a mortal wound. It’s not going to be a recovery.”
US Attorney for DC Judge Jeanine Pirro said: “Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom of the National Guard – a hero who volunteered to serve DC on Thanksgiving for people she never met and gave the ultimate sacrifice.
“May she rest in peace. It is now time to avenge her death and secure justice.”
The deranged suspect has since been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghanistan native, who drove across the country from Washington state to the nation’s capital to conduct the targeted attack, federal investigators said.
Lakanwal’s reign of terror ended minutes after he critically wounded Beckstrom and Wolfe.
Federal investigators have since executed two search warrants at Lakanwal’s home in Washington state and another in San Diego.
FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters on Thursday that officials seized several electronic devices from Lakanwal’s property in Washington state, including laptops and computers.
Patel also said the residents who were in the Washington state home at the time were interviewed by the FBI.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said that Lakanwal, 29, had come to the United States in September 2021 – after the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan – through a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans who had worked with the US government.
Ratcliffe said that his involvement was “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation.”
The CIA director slammed the former administration’s “disastrous” actions during the withdrawal, which allowed unvetted foreigners to enter the US on temporary visas.
“The Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US government, including the CIA,” Ratcliffe added.
“The individual – and so many others – should have never been allowed to come here.”
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington DC, said Lakanwal targeted the National Guard soldiers.
President Donald Trump framed the shooting as an “act of terror” and said the attack “underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.”
He vowed to redouble his mass deportation efforts and deployed an additional 500 troops to the nation’s capital.
