Two West Virginia National Guard members who deployed to the nation’s capital have been shot just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence that the mayor described as a targeted attack.

Two West Virginia National Guard members who deployed to the nation’s capital were shot Wednesday just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence that the mayor described as a targeted attack.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said they were hospitalized in critical condition.

The rare shooting of National Guard members comes as the presence of the troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has been a flashpoint issue for months, fueling court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.

  • i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    155·
    5 hours ago

    People don’t join the national guard to invade somewhere and get shot at. The national guard is supposed to be protecting people at home.

    • MdRuckus @lemmy.world
      10·
      5 hours ago

      That’s not true. You serve both state and federal. I was in the NG. I did two tours in Iraq and a Bosnia peacekeeping mission. The NG gets deployed federally all the time.

    • Feyd@programming.dev
      61·
      5 hours ago

      Last week, about 160 of them volunteered to extend their deployment until the end of the year while the others returned to West Virginia just over a week ago.

      Seems they were volunteers at this point in time.