National Guard member shot trying to intervene during street fight in DC

A National Guard member was shot in the leg while trying to intervene during a street fight in Washington, police said.Jeffery Carroll, interim chief of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters Monday that the shooting occurred late Sunday when the National Guard member tried to break up a street fight, at which point one of the men pulled a gun and opened fire, hitting the guard member in the leg.“So both have gunshot wounds,” Carroll said, “the National Guard member and the suspect.” Both injuries were described as “non-life-threatening,” but the men were taken to a hospital to recover. During the incident, which Carroll said involved a group of seven or eight National Guard members, three of them “discharged firearms.”The shooting marks a rare instance of violence in Washington involving National Guard members, who mainly participate in show-of-force patrols while patrolling the capital. They aren’t empowered to make arrests, but they may intervene on their own volition in public disturbances.President Donald Trump first deployed the National Guard to Washington in August 2025 to crack down on crime in the city. In July, the Trump administration extended the deployment to 2029.DOJ TELLS DC COUNCIL IT HAS ‘NO POWER’ TO DEMAND NATIONAL GUARD WITHDRAWALThe Trump administration has since touted the decreased crime in the city around the deployment and a safer atmosphere in areas such as Union Station. Critics have complained of its high cost, estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to stand at around $3 million per day. Perceptions of the deployment’s optics have been split mostly along partisan lines.The guard members have mainly been deployed in show-of-force patrols in high-visibility areas. A study from the nonpartisan Niskanen Center think tank, published over the summer, found the National Guard patrols led to a “measurable reduction in crime of approximately 24 percent.”