'Boom, boom': Witness recounts DC shooting that left two National Guardsmen fighting for life

WASHINGTON, DC: Two National Guard troops were left in critical condition after being shot near the Farragut West metro station a day before Thanksgiving. A witness has revealed how she was cruising through the city in an Uber when she heard two loud "booms."

“I literally had just said to the Uber driver. It’s such a beautiful day outside,” Stacey Walters recalled, moments before two deafening cracks cut through the air at around 2 pm.

The scene unfolded near 17th Street as pedestrians ran for cover. Officers swarmed in and immediately performed CPR on the wounded Guardsmen as stunned witnesses tried to piece together what happened.

Witness recalls mayhem after National Guard troops shot

Stacey Walters, who was on her lunch break, told reporters she couldn’t believe what she heard on the “beautiful day” before the holiday. "Boom, boom. Two boom, booms. I didn’t think shooting, you know, it’s a holiday, and it was so beautiful— I literally had just said to the Uber driver. It’s such a beautiful day outside," Walters said.

Things escalated fast. "So, then the Uber driver says to me, why are all these people running? So then, I look on the street with so many people running the opposite direction, and it was little, little children too. They looked like school-aged children— maybe even as young as five."

"And the kids are— they’re on both sides of the street, and kids are running. So, then I heard 'Help, help!' Someone yelled out 'help' twice. I don’t know if it was the individual that was shot, or was it someone yelling for help. So, then I’m actually on 17th street. Then, the armed men, and I say to the driver, 'They’re not gonna let us walk around here.' Then the armed men say to us, 'You have to turn around. You have to turn around,'" she recalled.

Walters couldn’t have been more blindsided. "I was just on my way— on my lunch break going to the dry cleaners, when this all happened."

A reporter pressed her for details. "What did you see?" they asked.

"That’s the thing. I didn’t have my contacts in. They were irritating me, so I took them out," she said. "Sorry, guys, but um, as far as the time stamp, I was picked up in Uber at 2:12. I was heading to the Ronald Reagan Building for my lunch to go to the dry cleaners there… And 2:12, and I was on F Street by about 2:15, and that’s when I heard the 'Boom boom.'"

Officials call it a 'targeted shooting' as Trump and JD Vance react

As emergency crews rushed the wounded Guardsmen to the hospital, state officials weighed in.

West Virginia will “provide additional updates once we receive more complete information,” promised Governor Patrick Morrisey, whose state National Guard members were the ones hit.

Meanwhile, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called it a “targeted shooting” on X and vowed the suspect would be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law.”

Vice President JD Vance was speaking to troops at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when he learned of the incident. He paused his remarks to ask service members to “say a prayer for those two National Guardsmen that they’re able to spend Thanksgiving with their families, instead of losing their lives, because I understand they’re still in pretty tough condition.”

President Trump posted on Truth Social that the suspect was also “severely wounded” along with the Guardsmen.

The “animal,” he said, “will pay a very steep price.”