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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lucy Campbell and agencies

National guard shooting suspect spent ‘weeks on end’ in isolation, emails show

silhouettes of people standing behind yellow tape
Members of law enforcement respond to a shooting near the White House in Washington DC, on Wednesday. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The suspect in the shooting of two West Virginia national guard soldiers in Washington DC on the eve of Thanksgiving had been struggling with his mental health, sometimes spending “weeks on end” in isolation, as he tried to assimilate in the years since arriving in the United States, it has emerged.

According to emails obtained by the Associated Press, Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s mental health had been unravelling for years, leaving him unable to hold a job and flipping between long, dark stretches of isolation and taking sudden, weeks-long cross-country drives.

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