The scene around Washington’s Farragut Square on Wednesday afternoon seem to fit Donald Trump’s most lurid stereotypes of a crime-ridden capital in need of federal troops to bring a firm smack of law and order.
An area normally the preserve of professional office workers, coffee shops and lunch venues instead bore the hallmarks of a major crime scene as news spread that two national guard troops had been shot. Authorities later said the shooting suspect had been identified as an Afghan man.
In the minutes following the shooting outside Farragut North metro station, squads of fellow guard troops, police officers and heavily armed Secret Service personnel descended on the usually placid area and quickly cordoned off neighboring streets.
Workers in nearby offices were barred from exiting into the square and told to use rear entrances instead.
Two national guard members shot and in critical condition after ‘targeted’ incident in DC – video From the Guardian’s Washington bureau, overlooking the square, the area was a blaze of flashing lights from police and rescue vehicles, and frenetic activity as law enforcement personnel scoured the streets and a helicopter hovered overhead.
It was a disquieting backdrop in a location owing its name to David Farragut, a celebrated union naval commander in the American civil war who is immortalized by his famous battle cry of, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead” during the battle of Mobile Bay.
On the square itself, initial shock gave way to dismay among local residents who had hurried to the area after hearing of the incident.
One of the first to arrive was Gary Goodweather, a Democratic candidate for next year’s mayoral election, who had been having lunch in Washington’s 14th Street when he learned of the shooting.
A former US army captain who served in the national guard, Goodweather professed himself unsurprised, suggesting that Trump’s deployment of federal forces on the streets of Washington was an invitation to violence.
“If I’m completely honest, we’ve been expecting this. It hurts me to the core,” he said. “We knew that Trump was going to do this to the city. He tried to do it in his first administration. He knew what he was doing when he activated the national guard.
“The national guard should not have been in our city – period – for law enforcement.”
Asked if the Trump administration bore moral responsibility for the shooting by deploying the guards, Goodweather paused for several seconds before answering: “Yes.
“Look around us. These are citizens, they’re residents, they’re human beings. Activating the United States military against people within our own country, within Washington DC is the wrong message.”
Goodweather said he feared the administration would respond by increasing the troop deployments, which he said would “inflame” the mood on the streets.
“Please, do not let that occur,” he said. “Having a further enforced national guard military presence is the opposite of what we need to do right now.” Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has since ordered 500 additional national guard troops to the city at Trump’s request.
Jesse Lovell, 51, a self-employed editor and consultant, travelled from his home in Washington’s north-west district immediately after hearing the news.
“I wanted to know what was going on because this is an area I am often in,” he said. “This is just awful.”
Lovell said he worried about possible political motivations behind the shooting but tried to avoid apportioning blame. However, he said many residents were angry about what he called “the occupation” of the capital by federal troops.
Resentment, he said, was aimed not at the national guard but to other federal agents, who had been involved in arrests.
“It’s been going for many months and we are hearing that it may go on until next year because of the supposed crime emergency, which I don’t buy for a second,” he said.
“I know DC and crime here is nothing like it once was. But I don’t think there’s been any incidents between national guards and local residents.”
Addressing journalists across the street from the scene of the shooting, Kash Patel, the FBI director, addressed none of these concerns but instead conveyed a strict law and order message while paying homage to the national guard members, who he called “heroes”.
“We will run down every single lead, every piece of evidence [to find the perpetrator],” he said. “This is the power of the US government at its best.”