The Afghan man accused of gunning down two National Guard members blocks from the White House last week had been unraveling for years, unable to hold a job and flipping between long, lightless stretches of isolation and taking sudden weeks-long cross-country drives.
His behavior deteriorated so sharply that a community advocate reached out to a refugee organization for help, fearing he was becoming suicidal.
Emails obtained by The Associated Press reveal mounting warnings about the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an asylum seeker whose erratic conduct raised alarms long before the attack that struck the nation’s capital on the eve of Thanksgiving. The previously unreported concerns offer the clearest picture yet of how he was struggling in his new life in the United States.
Even so, when the community member who works with Afghan families in Washington state saw on the news that Lakanwal was named as the suspect in the National Guard shooting, they said they were stunned, unable to square the violence with the memory of seeing Lakanwal play with his young sons. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to share undisclosed details while cooperating with the FBI in its investigation.
West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were critically wounded in what officials described as an ambush attack on Wednesday afternoon, and Beckstrom died from his injuries the next day. Investigators are still working to establish a motive for the attack.
