Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal was formally charged last week in the horrific shooting of National Guard members Andrew Wolfe and Sarah Beckstrom in front of a Washington, DC subway stop. Lakanwal is said to have killed Beckstrom during the shooting, while Wolfe is reportedly still struggling to recover; Attorney General Pam Bondi has indicated that the Justice Department plans to seek the death penalty.
But while Lakanwal has his day in court, a larger debate continues to rage over who is actually responsible for the killing: the shooter, or President Donald Trump. In the aftermath of the shooting, many on the left rushed to blame Trump.
Critics argued that the president’s deployment of the National Guard was a political stunt that unnecessarily placed Guardsmen like Wolfe and Beckstrom in the line of fire. The San Francisco Chronicle for example, claimed that the shootings came “after months of warnings that deployment would increase tensions.” Jane Mayer of the New Yorker went to X just hours after the shooting to call Trump’s deployment a “political show” and claim that “these poor Guardsmen should never have been deployed.”
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The reality is that, far from being a show, the Guard’s deployment in D.C. has reduced crime in the capital — a significant achievement in a city long plagued by violence. And responsibility for Lakanwal’s actions lies primarily with the killer himself, but also with the Biden administration, which allowed him into the country in 2021 after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
No one can dispute that DC has a serious violence problem – try it as Trump’s critics might. Prior to deployment, the the number of murders in the city was lower than the 2023 peak, but still 70% higher than the recent low in 2014. Facts from the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan crime policy organization, indicate that DC’s 2024 homicide rate was higher than that of cities such as Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia. And as I discovered my own researchthis is violence most concentrated in the poorest and most minority areas of the district. The city is home to 95% of murder victims and suspects are blackand 92% are men.
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The presence of the Guard has almost certainly reduced this violence. Recent analysis from crime researcher Jeff Asher notes a marked decline in shootings since the Guard came in. That corresponds to preliminary analysis done by CBS, but also with the reduction of crime that Memphis, Tennessee, saw during its own National Guard deployment.
Some on the left may want to pretend that the guards are just there for “show.” But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that deploying armed government agents is a necessity reduces crimeboth by discouraging lawbreaking and by relieving pressure on overburdened and understaffed police forces. Anyone who claims to be concerned about the well-being of DC’s poor black young men should cheer, not scoff.
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Furthermore, the best available evidence indicates that Lakanwal’s actions were not motivated by the Guard’s deployment. As far as we know, nothing about the National Guard’s presence in DC prompted him to take action. Rather, the image that begins to emerge is of a deranged individual being allowed into the country after a hasty vetting process following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, were shot on November 26 in Washington, DC. Beckstrom died in hospital on Thanksgiving, November 27. Wolfe is still recovering from the shooting. (United States Attorney for the District of Columbia/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
According to recent reports, Lakanwal had served with the CIA in his home country of Afghanistan. He was evacuated to the United States under Operation Allies Welcome, the resettlement program initiated by the Biden administration after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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These evacuees were apparently heavily vetted, both by the CIA and the government. But apparently this control missed Lakanwal, who reportedly struggled with assimilation and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He “had been unraveling for years, unable to hold down a job and alternating between long, lightless periods of isolation and taking sudden, week-long drives across the country,” he said. emails obtained by the Associated Press.
Undated file photo of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspect in the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, DC, on November 26, 2025. (Provided by the Ministry of Justice)
Lakanwal bears primary responsibility for the alleged shooting. But there is also blame to be placed on whatever failure of vetting to allow such a person – regardless of his past service – into the country and give him the freedom to back down until he attacked. Lakanwal was one of millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, admitted under the Biden administration; This is just the latest example of the dangers of uncontrolled, irresponsibly managed immigration.
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In that respect, people like Lakanwal are exactly the people the National Guard deployed to the streets of Washington DC to deter. Just like at the border, uncontrolled crime rages in the city.
The Guard’s deployment was an essential correction, not a pointless show. And by claiming otherwise, Staff Sgt. Wolfe and Sp. Beckstrom, and for every other law enforcement officer and security guard who puts his or her life on the line.
