Bystander remains in serious condition after White House checkpoint shooting

The bystander wounded in the White House checkpoint shooting remained in serious but stable condition Sunday, a reminder that the gunfire outside one of the nation’s most fortified sites left an uninvolved person critically caught in the crossfire. The Secret Service said the gunshot wound was not life-threatening, but investigators still had not explained how the bystander was hit.

The Metropolitan Police Department identified the suspect as 21-year-old Nasire Best of Dundalk, Maryland. Police said Best began shooting toward a White House security checkpoint late Saturday afternoon, prompting Secret Service officers to return fire. Best was later pronounced dead at a hospital. President Donald Trump was inside the White House when the shooting broke out.

The episode marked the third shooting near the president in the past month, sharpening attention on security failures around the White House perimeter. In April, a man stormed the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner armed with guns and knives, and earlier this month Secret Service officers shot and wounded a man who fired at them near the Washington Monument. The latest attack has raised fresh questions about how an armed suspect was able to engage officers at a checkpoint and how a bystander was struck in the exchange.

Trump used the shooting to press his case for major security spending and a new ballroom on the White House campus. In a Truth Social post, he said Best had a “possible obsession with our Country’s most cherished structure” and argued that the attack showed why future presidents need “the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.” Trump is asking Congress for $1 billion for security additions to the White House campus, including the ballroom.

Court records show Best had a previous run-in with law enforcement near the White House. He was arrested in July 2025 after trying to enter a different checkpoint, failing to follow officers’ commands to stop, saying he was Jesus Christ and telling police he wanted to be arrested. Best graduated from Dundalk High School in 2023 and was a track and field athlete there.

Rhonda Melvin, who identified herself as Best’s mother, told The Washington Post that she learned of the shooting on social media and said her son “was never violent, regardless of what people are posting.” As investigators work to piece together the sequence of shots, the focus remains on how a security breach outside the White House left a bystander in serious condition and exposed another weakness at a site built to project absolute control.