Nasire Best, 21, of Maryland, had been showing up at the White House for nearly a year before Saturday evening, when he pulled out a revolver and opened fire at a security checkpoint. Secret Service officers shot and killed him at the scene. At least one bystander was seriously wounded.
The agents who confronted him had seen him before. Court records show he was involuntarily committed in June 2025 after obstructing traffic near 15th Street and E Street NW, just blocks from where he would be killed eleven months later. The following month, he was arrested for unlawful entry after bypassing a restricted pedestrian control post at the White House perimeter. When agents detained him, he told them he was Jesus Christ and that he wanted to be arrested.
A court issued an order barring him from the area. He violated it and kept coming back. The Secret Service kept finding him loitering around White House entry posts in the months that followed. No political motive has been established. Best wasn’t a political operative with a manifesto; he was a deeply disturbed young man who kept returning, compulsively, to the same patch of federal ground until the day he arrived armed.
The shooting lasted seconds. Best fired a few rounds before officers cut him down. Members of the press corps on the White House grounds dove for cover as the shots rang out.
“It sounded like dozens of gunshots. We were told to sprint to the press briefing room,” ABC White House senior correspondent Selina Wang said.
The complex was locked down within minutes and cleared roughly 35 minutes later. Two other shootings near the White House preceded Saturday’s, one at the Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April, another involving Michael Marx, 45, of Texas, on May 4.
FBI Director Kash Patel said federal investigators were on scene.
“FBI is on the scene and supporting Secret Service responding to shots fired near White House grounds,” Patel wrote on X. “We will update the public as we’re able.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was “grateful for the brave Secret Service agents who took quick, decisive action to protect President Trump,” adding that his prayers were with the victims. Trump was inside the White House at the time, working on an Iran peace deal, and was never in immediate danger.
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