In the days after an Afghan CIA operative allegedly shot two National Guardsmen — ultimately killing one — Jay Brown walked through Navy Yard with his daughter eager to, once again, speak with some of the men and women in uniform who’ve been deployed to the District, by orders of their Republican governor working in support of the Trump administration.
However, as Brown explained to The Informer, the uniformed personnel he encountered during the Thanksgiving holiday break no longer shared his enthusiasm for conversation.
“They’re human, and they’re entitled to those emotions,” Brown, a lifelong Ward 7 resident, said about his experience. “Do we want them to act on those emotions? If those emotions are there, then no, but we can do what we can to reach out and manage those relationships.”
During the latter part of the summer, President Donald J. Trump invoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, which compels the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to work more closely with federal law enforcement agencies.
As part of that deal, Trump called for the deployment of National Guard troops from across the U.S.
By the time that 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, during a pre-Thanksgiving holiday ambush, allegedly shot West Virginia National Guardswoman Sarah Beckstrom and her comrade Andrew Wolfe, the federalization period had long expired, and MPD, by orders of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, was working closely with their federal law enforcement counterparts.
There had also been more than 2,300 National Guard personnel patrolling major corridors, Metro stations, and public parks under federal control. While several residents, and activists for that matter, saw the troops as an occupying force, Brown said they were just human beings following orders.
“Regardless of what their orders were, their demeanor and their posturing was not oppressive, it was just existing,” Brown told The Informer. “When you’re dealing with a city [that’s] fighting tooth and nail for home rule, there’s a lot of pushback that they were aware of. With their conversation and demeanor they were trying to let us know that [they’re] here to just be eyes and help keep us and our families safe, versus [being] here to occupy and oppress what you have going on.”
But now, with 500 more National Guardsmen deployed to the District, and MPD now commissioned to accompany troops on foot, Brown said he’s concerned about an already tense situation getting even more out of hand for all parties involved.
“We have to be honest…about what our current conditions are and how they evolve so frequently,” Brown said in his appeal to District leadership. “We have to make adjustments for the best interests of all. We should have a common goal of being safe, just feeling safe. In fact, our goal is to manage relationships and…focus more on humanitarian perspectives to be a better city and country.”
A City Under Siege Responds to a Worsening Situation
The Nov. 26 shooting, which struck a city already under the weight of a massive federal troop deployment ordered months ago by Trump, triggered an immediate lockdown of the West Wing as helicopters pounded overhead and police sealed off blocks of the capital.
The attack happened near the intersection of 17th and H Streets NW, only steps from the White House, in an area normally packed with commuters and federal workers. Law enforcement sources told CNN that Lakanwal, an Afghan veteran who worked with the CIA to target Taliban leaders in dangerous missions, approached Beckstrom and Wolfe, raised a firearm, and opened fire at close range before the troops returned fire and subdued him while wounded.
One Guardsman attempted to take cover behind a bus shelter before being struck, according to those same reports.
Beckstrom and Wolfe, deployed from West Virginia as part of Trump’s summer-long federalization of the National Guard, were rushed to separate hospitals in critical condition. The president confirmed Beckstrom, 20, died on Thanksgiving Day, while Wolfe, 24, is still in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
Lakanwal, who appeared in court remotely from a hospital, has been charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty.
Immediately following the shooting, Trump didn’t mince words about next steps.
“America will never bend and never yield in the face of terror,” the president said in a Nov. 26 video address, “and at the same time, we will not be deterred from the mission these servicemembers were so nobly fulfilling.”
The deployment of additional National Guard troops to the District comes despite a federal judge’s recent ruling that the administration’s initial deployment was illegal. That ruling has been paused pending appeal, but adding more troops stands in defiance of the court’s warning that the operation carries a substantial risk of deadly encounters.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s lawsuit calls the long-term military presence an illegal occupation that violates the Home Rule Act and the Posse Comitatus Act, arguing that Trump’s federalization of the city’s police and use of Guardsmen for street patrols is both unlawful and dangerous.
Touting a similar notion, Alex Dodds, co-founder and campaign director of Free DC, called the deployment of National Guard troops “illegal and illogical.”
“More troops with more weapons will not change that fact, it will only further endanger D.C. residents and the Guard themselves,” Dodds said in a statement.
Dodds zeroed in on what she called the underlying issue.
“Guard members should be home with their families in time for the holidays,” she continued. “Trump has appealed a court decision that would have gotten the troops home by December 11. He is preventing the troops from getting back home to their families for Christmas–we say once again that it’s time for the Guard to go home NOW.”
Bowser, fresh off a visit to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for Safeway’s 26th Annual Feast of Giving, weighed in on the Nov. 26 shooting, giving a take indicative of a local executive who’s tired of an occupying force.
“I want to be very clear,” Bowser said,” somebody drove across the country, came to Washington, D.C. to attack America and that person will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These young people should be at home in West Virginia with their families.”
Some people, like Jackson Shorter, have long held sentiments against the Trump administration’s insistence that D.C.’s in need of a heavy National Guard presence. For Shorter, addressing public safety in the District requires that the powers that be address the root causes of violence.
“A lot of these things you can’t control. And I do think there is a lot of fear-mongering going on in the [Trump] administration, a lot of police presence that’s not very comforting,” Shorter told The Informer in October, following a weekend of reports of citywide gun-related violence. “I think it goes beyond actual gun violence…into actual release between people of color and people of color that are trying to advance in life. The greater talking point is: how can we build community amid a lot of chaos?”
