Bystander shot near White House in serious condition
A man is in serious but stable condition after being shot at a checkpoint outside the White House and fatally shot by U.S. Secret Service officers.
The Secret Service said the unidentified man suffered a gunshot wound and his injuries were not life-threatening. It was not clear how he was shot.
Authorities have released several additional details about the shooting, which occurred early Saturday evening local time.
The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department said the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best, began shooting toward the White House security checkpoint when Secret Service officers returned fire.
Best, of Dundalk, Maryland, was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
US President Donald Trump was at the White House at the time of the attack.
It was the third shooting near the president in the past month, following a man who burst into the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner with a gun and knives in April, and Secret Service officers shot and wounded a man when he opened fire on them near the Washington Monument in early May.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the suspect in Saturday’s shooting had a “possible obsession with our Nation’s most treasured structure.”
He also used the attack to promote the ballroom he wants to build in the old East Wing of the White House, saying the attack “shows how important it is for all future Presidents to get the safest and most secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.”
Trump is requesting $1 billion ($1.4 billion) from Congress for security additions to the White House campus, including the ballroom.
Best had a previous run-in with law enforcement near the White House, according to District of Columbia court records.
He was arrested last July for trying to enter White House grounds near a different checkpoint.
The man, who did not obey the officers’ commands to stop, claimed to be Jesus Christ and said he wanted to be arrested.
Best was a track and field athlete at Dundalk High School, where he graduated in 2023.
A woman who identified herself as Best’s mother told the Washington Post that she learned about the attack on social media and couldn’t believe it. She said her son “never became violent, no matter what people shared.”
