Category: Shooting
‘Shut the f**k up’: White House hammers New Yorker writer for trivializing National Guard members’ sacrifice
Two West Virginia National Guardsmen patrolling the national capital were shot the day before Thanksgiving, allegedly by a 29-year-old Afghan national who Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem indicated “was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration.”
While 24-year-old U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is reportedly still fighting for his life, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom succumbed to her wounds on Thursday evening.
“My baby girl has passed to glory,” the fallen guardsman’s father, Gary Beckstrom, noted in a Facebook post on Thursday. “… This has been a horrible tragedy.”
‘Apologize and repent.’
Amid the general outpouring of prayers and support for the victims and their families, the New Yorker magazine’s chief Washington correspondent, Jane Mayer, decided to publicly trivialize the military members’ sacrifice.
“This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed,” wrote Mayer. “I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was a political show and at what a cost.”
Mayer’s apparent suggestion that the National Guardsman who died and others overseeing a historic and transformative decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C., were glorified garbage pickers did not go over well with the American people and their White House.
White House communications director Steven Cheung, responding on X from his official account, wrote, “Jane, respectfully, shut the f**k up for trying to politicize this tragedy.
“They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation’s capital safer,” continued Cheung. “People like you who engage in ghoulish behavior lose all credibility. Not like you had any to begin with.”
Military members and civilians pray outside the hospital where the two wounded National Guardsmen were taken. Photo by Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images.
The official White House rapid response account similarly castigated the liberal journalist, writing, “You sick, disgusting ghoul. Two of these heroes were just SHOT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. The Guard has saved countless lives — backed up by evidence (which you’re clearly too stupid to notice). They are American patriots.”
In August, President Donald Trump federalized the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., and deployed the National Guard there in order to “re-establish law, order, and public safety” to a city that had a higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rate than all 50 states.
D.C. immediately witnessed a dramatic drop in crime.
There was a 44% decrease in violent crime in the first three weeks of the anti-crime initiative when compared to the same stretch the previous year and a 27% drop in crime from Aug. 11 through Oct. 15 relative to the same period in 2024. In addition to saving lives, the reduction in crime led to savings of over $450 million as of Nov. 4, according to the America First Policy Institute.
The White House was not alone in its disgust over Mayer’s remarks.
Georgia Rep. Mike Collins (R) responded, “Apologize and repent.”
“Stop supporting the murder of American soldiers,” wrote BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) wrote, “All these sick people on the Left do is blame the victims. I’m thankful for our guardsmen and praying for them and their families as they keep protecting the peace.”
While others similarly bashed Mayer over her rush to politicize the attack on the guardsmen by a suspect apparently imported by the Biden administration, some critics refuted the New Yorker writer’s narrative by providing accounts of critical actions taken by the National Guard in the District of Columbia.
For instance, Wallace White, a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation, noted, “On my walk back from work a few weeks back, a man was dangling off the ledge of the metro tracks at Farragut West clearly trying to commit suicide by train. If two national guardsmen weren’t there at the time, he’d be dead. These people are heroes.”
Logan Dobson, vice president of the political advertising agency Targeted Victory, noted that he lives in D.C. and that the city is safer thanks to the National Guard, adding on the basis of murder statistics, “Dozens of Washingtonians are alive today that wouldn’t be if not for the Guard.”
When confronted by Dobson with evidence of the drop in crime following the National Guard’s deployment to D.C., Mayer said, “I’ve covered crime in Washington since 1981- let’s skip the mansplaining. You can play with the stats but homicides were dropping before the troops got here.”
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Armed carjackers meet their match as gun-toting victim turns the tables, shoots the crooks — among them a 14-year-old male
A crew of carjackers most definitely picked the wrong guy to steal from in Seattle over the weekend.
Officers around 3:30 a.m. Sunday responded to a shooting in the 2200 block of 1st Avenue, police said.
‘Stories like this just warm my heart. I love a happy ending.’
Officers found a suspect suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and detained him, police said, adding that they also detained the victim — a licensed gun owner — for questioning and recovered the firearm.
Firefighters responded with police and provided medical aid to the suspect, police said, adding that medics transported him to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition. Police said the suspect was under armed guard by officers.
Police determined that the victim parked his sports car along 1st Avenue when the driver of a white sedan approached him.
Image source: Seattle Police
Four individuals wearing face masks were in the vehicle, police said, adding that after a short conversation, two males armed with guns tried to steal the victim’s car.
Fearing for his safety, the victim fired multiple rounds, striking one of the suspects, police said.
The remaining suspects fled the area in the sedan before police arrived.
While they were investigating, police said the driver of a white sedan dropped off a second suspect at Harborview Medical Center. The second suspect also had been shot, was in serious condition, and was under armed guard, police said.
The driver of the sedan fled before officers arrived, police said.
One of the wounded suspects is a 14-year-old male, while the other is a 20-year-old male, KING-TV reported, citing police.
Both wounded suspects will be booked into custody when they are released from the hospital, the station noted.
Officers and robbery detectives processed the scene, collected evidence, and spoke to witnesses, police said, adding that officers took the victim to Seattle Police headquarters, where detectives interviewed him; he was then released. KING said the victim is 24 years old.
Police said the case is an open and active investigation assigned to the Robbery Unit.
More than 3,000 comments have flooded KING’s Facebook post about the shooting, and as you might expect, folks seem quite happy about the outcome. The following are a few of their reactions.
- “Not every hero wears a cape,” one commenter said.
- “The vehicle owner doing the Lord’s work,” another user noted.
- “Awesome story,” another commenter wrote before adding “buy that man a beer.”
- “Stories like this just warm my heart,” another user gushed. “I love a happy ending.”
- “FAFO! Whahahaha! I love it!!!” another user exclaimed.
- “When you allow your streets to become the Wild West, sometimes you run into Wyatt Earp,” another commenter observed.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
