Injured National Guard member remains in serious condition, but shows ‘positive’ signs

By Chelsea Bailey, CNN

(CNN) — Andrew Wolfe, the 24-year-old National Guard member who was injured in an ambush-style shooting in Washington, DC, last Wednesday, remains in serious condition but has shown “positive” signs of recovery, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said.

“My biggest message is Andrew is still fighting for his life,” Morrisey said at a news conference on Monday.

The governor said his office was told that when a nurse asked Wolfe to give a thumbs up if he could hear, “he did respond.”

“And we were told that he also wiggled his toes, so we take that as a positive sign,” Morrisey added. Wolfe’s parents have asked for continued prayers as their son fights to recover, he said.

Wolfe, a US Air Force staff sergeant, was shot and injured while deployed to Washington, DC, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce crime. A fellow West Virginia National Guard member, Sarah Beckstrom, was also shot in the attack. The 20-year-old died Thursday from her injuries.

Morrisey remembered Beckstrom as “an amazing woman who lifted up people.”

“She is someone who is going to be remembered for a very, very long time, and she had her life tragically cut short,” the governor added.

The suspect in the shooting has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who worked with the CIA for over a decade in Afghanistan before the US military withdrew from the country.

Lankanwal came to the United States in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration-era program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans — many of whom worked alongside US troops and diplomats — after the American withdrawal. He applied for asylum in 2024, and it was granted earlier this year under the Trump administration.

The suspect faces at least one first-degree murder charge, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, told Fox News on Friday, adding, “There are certainly many more charges to come.”

Lakanwal was wounded during the shooting and taken to the hospital, authorities said. His condition is unknown, but he has not had his first court appearance.

West Virginia National Guard remain in DC

At Monday’s news conference, Morrisey emphasized that guard members volunteered to be deployed to the nation’s capital and said 170 members of the state’s National Guard remain in Washington, DC, to support local law enforcement.

He said his office does “not have a specific date in mind” for when those troops will return to West Virginia.

Morrisey declined to directly address the source of conflicting statements his office released shortly after the shooting about the condition of the two injured guard members. Initially, a statement from Morrisey’s office indicated that both guard members had been killed, but it was later corrected.

“I could tell you that the process is that we try to get as much information as we can, accurate information, from the most credible sources,” Morrisey said. “In this case, that information was incorrect and then within 20 minutes we changed it.”

Shortly after the shooting, the Trump administration filed an emergency motion to keep the National Guard in Washington, DC, after a judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s deployment of the guard was unlawful.

City officials had argued in a lawsuit against the troops’ deployment, saying it undermined the city’s autonomy and was unnecessary.

Trump also asked for 500 more National Guard troops to be deployed to the nation’s capital.

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CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.