A bystander remains in serious yet stable condition after being hit by gunfire when U.S. Secret Service officers responded to a shooting outside the White House. The incident resulted in the fatal shooting of the assailant by authorities.
The Secret Service confirmed that the bystander, whose identity has not been disclosed, sustained a gunshot wound. Although the injury is not life-threatening, the exact circumstances of how the bystander was hit remain unclear.
Details about the shooting, which occurred early Saturday evening, are sparse. The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia reported that 21-year-old Nasire Best from Dundalk, Maryland, initiated the gunfire toward a White House security checkpoint. In response, Secret Service officers opened fire, leading to Best being pronounced dead at a local hospital.
At the time of the incident, President Donald Trump was inside the White House.
This marks the third shooting incident near the President within a month. The previous occurrences included an armed man disrupting the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April and another incident earlier this month where a man was shot and wounded by the Secret Service after firing at them near the Washington Monument.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said the suspect in Saturday’s shooting had a “possible obsession with our Country’s most cherished structure.” He also used the shooting to promote the ballroom he is seeking to build on the site of the White House’s former East Wing, saying the shooting “goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.” Trump is asking Congress for $1 billion for security additions for 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 attempting to enter White House grounds near a different checkpoint. He failed to heed 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, from which he graduated in 2023.
A woman who identified herself as Best’s mother told The Washington Post that she learned about the shooting on social media and was in disbelief. She said her son “was never violent, regardless of what people are posting.”