National Guardsman injured in DC shooting after attempting to break up street fight

The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., has said it is investigating a shooting involving a member of the National Guard.In a statement posted to social media, the MPD said the incident occurred in the 400 block of 8th Street South East near the Eastern Market metro in the U.S. capital late Sunday.Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll subsequently delivered a press conference at the scene in the early hours of Monday morning in which he explained that “seven or eight” Guardsmen in a van had been monitoring a group of individuals on a sidewalk when a fight broke out at approximately 11.10pm. As the Guardsmen exited their vehicle to break it up, one of the participants in the brawl drew a gun and fired.The Guardsmen appealed to the shooter to drop the weapon, which he declined to do, prompting three of the troops to return fire near the entrance to an alleyway.Carroll said one of the Guardsmen was shot in the leg (DC Police Department)One of the Guardsmen was shot in the leg and the suspect was hit in the abdomen, Chief Carroll said.Both injured parties were taken to hospital to receive treatment for their injuries, which the chief described as “non-life threatening” and said he expected them to survive.He added that the MPD’s Internal Affairs and Criminal Investigations divisions were on the scene and that there was no further threat to the public.Chief Carroll said the suspect was the only participant in the shooting but that investigators would still like to speak to the other participants in the initial witnesses, who fled the scene when the shooting began, and any other eyewitnesses who could elaborate on how it started.The incident comes almost a year on from the shooting of two members of the West Virginia National Guard in D.C.The incident comes less than a year on from the shooting of Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and Specialist Sarah Beckstrom in D.C., in which the latter was killed (U.S. Attorney’s Office)Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe 24 – part of President Donald Trump’s federal deployment of Guardsmen to Washington – were fired on in an ambush near Farragut West metro station on November 26, 2025, just two blocks northwest of the White House.Both Guardsmen were shot in the head by their attacker’s .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver before two colleagues were able to disarm and subdue him.Beckstrom subsequently died in hospital of her injuries while the suspect, identified as Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was critically injured. Trump responded to the incident by ramping up his federal surge, summoning a further 500 Guardsmen to the city’s streets and vowing to advance his illegal immigration crackdown.The president also honored the victims in his State of the Nation address in February, awarding both Beckstrom and Wolfe the Purple Heart in honor of their bravery.