By Mike Tony
Charleston Gazette-Mail
West Virginia has been deploying the most state National Guard troops per capita in Washington, D.C., among all states backing President Donald Trump’s August order to send members of the military force there — a move Trump justified with exaggerations about the prevalence of crime in the nation’s capital.
West Virginia has done so under Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a fervent Trump supporter, despite Washington’s crime rates plunging prior to the mobilization, District of Columbia leaders opposing the mobi-lization of other states’ National Guard members there and evi-dence the Trump administration knew National Guard deployments to Washington could increase rather than prevent unrest there.
The National Guard’s presence in Washington under Trump’s August declaration of a “crime emergency” there has faced fresh scrutiny since two West Virginia National Guard members were shot near the White House Wednesday.
U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of Webster Springs, Webster County, died Thursday evening,
Morrisey announced. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, of Martinsburg was critically wounded.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who worked in a CIAbacked Afghan Army unit before coming to the U.S. as a refugee in 2021, has been charged with first-degree murder.
The West Virginia National Guard had the highest National Guard presence in Washington among all states on the day of the shooting, according to data the D.C. Armory Joint Information Center provided to the Gazette-Mail.
West Virginia had 180 of its National Guard members deployed in Washington as of Wednesday — roughly 10.2 per 100,000 state residents, according to Joint Information Center data.
That figure was more than the six other states — all Republican-controlled — deploying members of their state National Guard contingents:
■ Mississippi (270, or 9.1 per 100,000 residents)
■ Louisiana (180; 3.9)
■ Alabama (200; 3.9)
■ Georgia (300; 2.7)
■ Ohio (150; 1.3)
■ South Carolina (3;0.05)
The District of Columbia National Guard, which reports to the president rather than to a state governor, had 920 personnel deployed, or 131 per 100,000 D.C. residents.
Read more of the story at the Charleston Gazette-Mail
