Witness Photos Captured the Attack on the National Guard

Footage from a passerby at Wednesday’s shooting shows a man holding a revolver and a U.S. National Guardsman returning fire.

It was a pre-Thanksgiving afternoon that few Americans could have imagined: U.S. troops defending themselves in a gunfight in the streets of the American capital.

A National Guardsman and the suspect at the scene of Wednesday’s shooting in Washington, D.C.

A witness took photos of the ambush of the two National Guard troops that shows the suspect—an Afghan refugee with whom the Central Intelligence Agency had once worked—with a revolver in hand, U.S. National Guardsmen shooting back and fallen Guard members on the ground.

The episode was captured on a smartphone by a passerby who was traveling past the Farragut West Metro station, just three blocks north of the White House, when the shooting occurred. The witness shared the photos with The Wall Street Journal. The images of the scene correspond with an account by Jeffrey Carroll, the executive assistant chief of the Metropolitan Police Department.

The National Guard doesn’t have law-enforcement duties and has been conducting “high visibility patrols” in the city, said Carroll. Guard members are often seen near the square.

Earlier the afternoon of the shooting, a clerk at a nearby convenience store gave one of the Guardsman a free snack, a small preholiday gesture that underscored the relaxed relationship between Guard members and the downtown neighborhood.

Then what Carroll called an “ambush” occurred. The suspect, he told reporters, “came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged at the National Guard members.” Guard members are seen reacting to the attack. The time stamp on the image says it was taken around 2:13 p.m.

This photo below taken a few seconds later provides the first known image of the suspect holding a revolver in his right hand as he stood on the corner of 17th and “I” streets. One National Guardsman is running down the street.

Five seconds later, the Guardsman fires loud shots that the smartphone recorded.

Fallen Guard members lie on the sidewalk on 17th Street NW.

Many Afghan troops fought alongside their American and allied counterparts during the two-decades-long-war in Afghanistan, which followed al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But there were sporadic “insider” attacks in which members of the Afghan security forces turned their guns on the U.S. and its allies during America’s longest war.

That conflict has largely been in the rearview mirror for many Americans. The shooting Wednesday brought it home. On Wednesday evening, the 17th Street Metro entrance was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com