A man opened fire Saturday near a White House security checkpoint and was killed after U.S. Secret Service officers returned fire, according to the agency. The Secret Service said the shooting took place shortly after 6 p.m. EDT in the area of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and that a suspect died at a hospital after officers hit him. The incident occurred while President Donald Trump was at the White House, and the Secret Service said Trump was not “impacted.”
The Secret Service identified the suspect as 21-year-old Nasire Best. A law enforcement official told reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, that Best was the man killed after the shooting. The agency said officers responded after Best “pulled a weapon from his bag” and began firing near the checkpoint.
District of Columbia court records cited by the Associated Press show Best was arrested in July 2025 after he attempted to enter a different White House checkpoint without authorization, did not heed officers’ commands to stop, and “claimed he was Jesus Christ” and said he wanted to be arrested. The records also say an initial hearing was held and a “Pretrial Stay Away Order” was issued, and that a bench warrant was later issued in August after a notice of “noncompliance.”
The AP report said a bystander was also struck during the Saturday shooting, though a law enforcement official said it was not clear whether the person was hit by the suspect’s initial bullets or by shots fired subsequently by officers. The Secret Service said none of its officers were injured.
The Secret Service said Saturday’s incident was the third time in the past month that shots were fired near the president. The AP report tied it to earlier gunfire incidents that included April’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and a May shooting near the Washington Monument. As covered in a prior AP-linked MSI story about the Washington Monument shooting that case, security officials responded to another gunfire event involving the Secret Service near Trump earlier in May.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that agency personnel were on the scene and that the FBI would update the public “as we’re able,” according to the AP report. Journalists working at the White House said they heard shots and were told to shelter inside the press briefing room. In a post shared on X, ABC News senior White House correspondent Selina Wang said she heard what she described as “dozens of gunshots,” and video she shared showed her moving to take cover near the media area as gunfire sounded in the background.
The scene outside the White House complex showed evidence markers and crime-scene tape, the AP report said. Medical materials were also visible on a sidewalk just outside the complex, including what appeared to be purple surgical gloves and kits typically used by emergency medical personnel. The Secret Service said Trump had changed his plans on Friday to stay at the White House instead of going to his New Jersey golf club for the weekend.
The AP report said the White House area where shots were fired on Saturday was within walking distance of a deadly attack last November in which a gunman ambushed two members of the West Virginia National Guard. U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was critically wounded, and Rahmanullah Lakanwal has been charged in that incident, the report said. The Saturday shooting also came nearly a month after what law enforcement authorities described as an attempted assassination of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, when a man pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to kill Trump by firing a shotgun at a Secret Service officer after running through a security checkpoint inside the hotel.