National Guard member shot in D.C. while trying to break up fight
by Matt Delaney · The Washington TimesD.C. police said a National Guard trooper was shot in the leg late Sunday after intervening in a fight outside of a business near Eastern Market.
Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said seven or eight Guardsmen were parked in the 400 block of Eighth Street SE around 11 p.m. when they saw the scuffle taking place.
Chief Carroll said the troops tried to calm tensions, which is when a suspect pulled out a gun and opened fire. The chief said three Guardsmen fired back at the suspect.
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“Members of the National Guard immediately gave commands to that individual to put the gun down. That individual pointed the weapon towards the National Guard members who returned fire. In this incident, one National Guard member was struck, also the suspect in this case was struck,” Chief Carroll said.
Authorities said the Guardsman was shot in the leg, and the suspect was also wounded in the fracas.
Police said the trooper and the suspect, whose identity wasn’t shared, were taken to a hospital and were expected to survive.
Police have not announced charges against the suspect.
The Joint Task Force-District of Columbia, which oversees the nearly 3,000-troop National Guard deployment in the nation’s capital, said the Guardsman has been released from the hospital and is recovering.
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President Trump sent the National Guard into the District in August 2025 as part of a mission to rein in crime.
The troopers lack arrest powers but have supported the Metropolitan Police and federal agents who have put criminals in handcuffs. A viral teen brawl last Halloween saw Guard members trying to separate the feuding minors from each other.
The U.S. Marshals Service, the lead agency in the federal crime-fighting operation, said the federal surge netted 16,000 arrests in its first full year.
But city leaders have blasted the deployment as unnecessary, saying crime declines were well underway before boots were on the ground last summer. Some studies have shown the National Guard have had little, if any, effect on the crime in the District.
Major crimes such as homicides, carjackings and robberies are down year-over-year, but nonfatal shootings and stabbings are up 41% so far in 2026. Violent crime overall is up 12% because of the weapons assaults
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Matt Delaney
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