National Guard Ambush Suspect Hospitalized in “Dire,” Self-Inflicted Condition
After Refusing Food, Court Filing Says
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan national charged with the Thanksgiving-week ambush shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members, steps from the White House, was rushed to a hospital overnight July 7-8, 2026 — not because of anything done to him, but because he had spent an extended period refusing to eat while held in federal custody.
Prosecutors disclosed the hospitalization in an emergency court filing on July 9, 2026. At an emergency hearing the same day, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta called Lakanwal’s condition “dire” and “self-inflicted,” and ruled that prosecutors may access his medical records and treating providers for as long as he remains hospitalized.
The development lands three weeks after prosecutors secured a seventeen-count superseding indictment that makes the case death-penalty eligible. Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty to every count. The Justice Department’s Capital Case Committee has not yet decided whether to formally seek his execution.
- 17 counts — in the federal superseding indictment returned June 16, 2026, including murder of a person assisting a federal officer and three counts of attempted murder · Source: DOJ USAO-DC; The Washington Post
- “Dire” — and “self-inflicted” — U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta's description of Lakanwal's condition at the July 9, 2026 emergency hearing · Source: Fox News; WJLA
- 20, deceased — Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, West Virginia Army National Guard, died Nov. 27, 2025, the day after the shooting · Source: DOJ; PBS NewsHour
- 24, wounded — Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, West Virginia Air National Guard, critically wounded and survived, recovering as of Feb. 2026 · Source: DOJ; CBS News
- Not yet decided — whether DOJ's Capital Case Committee will formally seek the death penalty, despite the indictment's death-eligible aggravating factors · Source: The Washington Post; CBS News
Just before 2:15 p.m. on November 26, 2025 — the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — prosecutors allege Rahmanullah Lakanwal, then 29, walked up to a group of West Virginia National Guard members posted near 17th and I Streets NW, a block from the White House and steps from the Farragut West Metro station, and opened fire without provocation, shouting “Allahu Akbar.” The government alleges he used a stolen .357 revolver, taken in a 2023 theft in Seattle, and that he had driven across the country before the attack.
Two Guard members were struck: Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of the West Virginia Army National Guard, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, of the West Virginia Air National Guard. Two nearby National Guard majors subdued the alleged shooter at the scene. Beckstrom died of her wound the next day, November 27, 2025. Wolfe was critically wounded but survived, and was reported to be recovering as of February 2026. Lakanwal was himself wounded during the encounter and made his first court appearance by video from a hospital bed on December 2-3, 2025.
“Sarah Beckstrom was 20 years old, serving her country in the nation's capital, when Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly drove across the country and executed her in cold blood steps from the White House.”
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, announcing the superseding indictment, June 16, 2026
Lakanwal, now 30, is an Afghan national from Khost Province who most recently lived in Bellingham, Washington. He entered the United States on September 8, 2021, under Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden administration’s parole program that resettled tens of thousands of Afghans in the chaotic weeks after the fall of Kabul. He was granted asylum in April 2025 — roughly seven months before prosecutors allege he carried out the ambush.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (R) halted Afghan visa and asylum processing in the shooting’s aftermath and described Lakanwal as having been “radicalized” while living in the United States. President Trump (R) ordered flags flown at half-staff in Beckstrom’s honor, invited both Guard members’ families to the White House, and called for a re-examination of every Afghan national admitted under the Biden-era parole program.
The person that did this will pay a very steep price!
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
President Trump's Truth Social reaction the day of the shooting.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) called the killing “devastated” and “tragic beyond belief” for his state, which lost a member of its Army National Guard on a security posting a few hundred yards from the seat of the federal government. West Virginia’s National Guard has deployed personnel to Washington on rotating security assignments; Beckstrom and Wolfe were part of one such rotation at the time of the shooting.
Lakanwal was initially charged with first-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, two counts of firearm possession during a crime of violence, and federal interstate-firearm counts tied to the stolen revolver. He pleaded not guilty at his first hearing, appearing by video from his hospital bed.
On June 16, 2026, a federal grand jury returned a seventeen-count superseding indictment, adding eight new counts: murder of a person assisting a federal officer, three counts of attempted murder of a person assisting a federal officer, discharge of a firearm causing death, and three counts of discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. The grand jury also found intentional-killing and multiple-victim aggravating factors — the specific findings that make the case eligible for the death penalty under federal law. Lakanwal was arraigned on the superseding indictment and pleaded not guilty to all seventeen counts.
Charges: 17 federal counts, including murder and multiple counts of attempted murder of a person assisting a federal officer, discharge of a firearm causing death, and firearms counts tied to a stolen weapon.
Plea: not guilty to all counts, entered at the June 16, 2026 arraignment on the superseding indictment.
Death penalty: the indictment's aggravating-factor findings make the case eligible. DOJ's Capital Case Committee is reviewing whether to formally seek it; no decision has been announced.
Custody: held in federal custody since his December 2025 arraignment; hospitalized July 7-8, 2026 after refusing food and water for an extended period, per the U.S. Marshals Service.
In June 2026, the U.S. Marshals Service alerted prosecutors that Lakanwal was refusing adequate nutrition for an extended period while in federal custody. His condition deteriorated over the following weeks. On the night of July 7-8, 2026, he was rushed to a hospital “for medical treatment necessary to preserve his life,” according to the government’s own filing.
Prosecutors disclosed the hospitalization the next day, July 9, 2026, in an emergency notice filed with the court. At an emergency hearing the same day, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta described Lakanwal’s condition as “dire” and, notably, “self-inflicted” — the court’s own characterization that this was a consequence of Lakanwal’s prolonged refusal to eat, not the result of any assault, mistreatment, or third-party act while in custody. Mehta ruled that prosecutors may have access to Lakanwal’s medical records and treating providers for as long as he remains hospitalized, a step typically taken to monitor a defendant’s fitness to stand trial and to guard against any claim that custody conditions themselves caused the crisis.
The man charged in the deadly ambush shooting of two National Guard members near the White House has been hospitalized after refusing food and water for weeks in federal custody, prosecutors say.
The filing does not allege that Lakanwal was attempting suicide, nor does it characterize the refusal as a hunger strike tied to any stated demand; it describes an extended pattern of inadequate nutrition that the Marshals Service flagged to prosecutors weeks before the hospitalization became an emergency. The case remains pending, and the judge’s ruling on medical-record access applies only for the duration of Lakanwal’s hospitalization — it does not resolve, or speak to, any question of guilt.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) reacted to news of the June indictment by writing that she was “devastated” and asking the public to “pray for Sarah’s family,” adding: “America will never forget her courage. There WILL BE JUSTICE for Sarah. Continue to pray for Andrew. Thank you to President Trump — the death penalty is back.” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the office would “pursue every penalty the law permits as we seek justice for Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe.” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Darren B. Cox and Metropolitan Police Interim Chief Jeffery W. Carroll joined Pirro at the announcement.
The FBI worked alongside our federal, state, and local partners to bring this superseding indictment against Rahmanullah Lakanwal for the ambush killing of a National Guard member near the White House.
This story concerns exclusively the November 26, 2025 ambush near the White House. It is unrelated to two other Washington-area shootings covered separately in the press: the May 23, 2026 shooting of Nasire Best, who died of his wounds, and a separate May 4, 2026 shooting near the Washington Monument. Neither case involves Lakanwal or the National Guard ambush, and conflating the three has produced confusion in some social-media coverage this year.
This story cites one verified Truth Social post — President Trump’s day-of reaction to the shooting. A second candidate post attributed to Secretary Noem could not be verified: the URL supplied did not resolve to a real, live post and redirected to the Truth Social homepage. Rather than publish an unverifiable citation, we cut it. This page runs with one Truth Social reference instead of the site’s usual two-or-more standard — a confirmed gap, not a fabricated substitute.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal is charged, not convicted, with the November 26, 2025 ambush shooting that killed Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and critically wounded Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe a block from the White House. He has pleaded not guilty to a seventeen-count federal indictment that makes the case eligible for the death penalty, a decision the Justice Department has not yet made. This week’s news is narrower than the underlying case: after weeks of refusing food in federal custody, Lakanwal was hospitalized in what the presiding judge himself called a “dire” and “self-inflicted” condition — not an assault, not foul play, but a medical emergency the court is now monitoring so it does not derail a capital-eligible prosecution.
