President Donald Trump was inside the White House during a Saturday evening shooting near a security checkpoint, and a bystander who was hit by gunfire was in serious but stable condition on Sunday, according to authorities and the Secret Service.
The Secret Service said the bystander, who had not been identified, suffered a gunshot wound it described as not life-threatening. Officials said it was not immediately clear how the bystander was struck, and the Metropolitan Police Department said it had released few additional details about the incident.
Authorities identified the suspect as 21-year-old Nasire Best, of Dundalk, Maryland. The Metropolitan Police Department said Best began shooting toward a White House security checkpoint, and Secret Service officers returned fire. Best was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement posted on social media that no officers were injured. He also said his “thoughts are also with the innocent bystander who was wounded during this incident,” and that the Secret Service was “hopeful he will make a full recovery.”
It was the third shooting near the president in the past month. The earlier incidents included a man storming the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April armed with guns and knives, and Secret Service officers shooting and wounding a man who fired at them earlier this month near the Washington Monument.
In a Truth Social post, Trump described Best as having a “possible obsession with our Country’s most cherished structure.” Trump 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 attack “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 said he is asking Congress for $1 billion for security additions for the White House campus, including the planned ballroom. The Metropolitan Police Department and the Secret Service did not immediately provide additional detail on the sequence of events beyond the initial description of the shooting and the return of fire.
Records cited by the Metropolitan Police Department through court information showed Best had a previous run-in with law enforcement near the White House. The account said Best was arrested last July for attempting to enter White House grounds near a different checkpoint and that he failed to heed officers’ commands to stop, claiming to be Jesus Christ and saying he wanted to be arrested.
The report also said Best was a track and field athlete at Dundalk High School and 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 expressed disbelief, saying her son “was never violent, regardless of what people are posting.”