White House shooter Nasire Best's fellow track teammate remembers him as ‘lighthearted’

WASHINGTON, DC: Nasire Best, the 21-year-old Maryland man fatally shot after opening fire near the White House, was remembered by those who knew him as a once “light-hearted” former high-school athlete who later worked as an Amazon driver before his mental health deteriorated.

Best was shot at around 6 pm on Saturday, May 23, after he opened fire at officers stationed at the checkpoint on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Officers returned fire, critically injuring the suspect, who later died at a hospital. A bystander was also struck during the exchange of gunfire.

Nasire Best was high-school athlete who had ‘never been aggressive’

Best was “mentally disturbed” and had previously come to the attention of US security officials for allegedly lingering near multiple White House entry points, according to the New York Post. Authorities also said he violated an earlier court order barring him from going near the White House.

But according to people who knew Best personally, that troubled image was far removed from the person they once remembered.

Best was on the track team at Dundalk High School, a few miles outside Baltimore, where he graduated in 2023, the Banner reported.

A former track teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Best “was never an aggressive person,” remembering him instead as “very energetic” and “light-hearted” person who “believed he could achieve great things if he put his mind to it.”

The signs of Best’s mental distress were first exhibited last year when he was evicted from his apartment for failing to pay rent. The former teammate said Best was employed at the tim but appeared to be struggling with worsening mental health issues and had grown increasingly “irritable,” a change that eventually caused their friendship to fall apart.

Nasire Best believed he was God

Best’s another track mate, Jerome Patterson, who described himself as his closest friend, said Best’s grasp of reality noticeably began to slip during his time as an Amazon driver.

“We both worked alongside each other, sitting and chatting every day, he came to me about everything, and everything was fine until randomly he started talking about being in control of people and reality and how he could tap into a different frequency and hear and see things that we couldn’t,” Patterson told the Banner.

Patterson said Best eventually began believing he was God, a delusion that, according to him, led Best to quit his job at Amazon.

“He eventually blocked and stopped talking to his closest friends and disappeared,” Patterson said, claiming that Best was also estranged from his family.

Best showed signs of mental distress on social media as well, where he claimed he was the "real" Osama bin Laden and had posted online expressing the desire to harm US President Donald Trump, per a report.

“He said if he was the Butler shooter, Trump would be dead. Thank God the shooter has been killed. I’m sure his friends will say he Dindu Nuffin… they always do,” he wrote in one of his posts.