MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – Two West Virginia National Guard members were critically wounded in a shooting just blocks from the White House, prompting the Trump administration to announce plans to send another 500 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.

The shooting occurred as chaos erupted in Washington, where National Guard troops have been deployed since August under President Trump’s emergency order as part of his crackdown on street crime and immigration enforcement.

A week ago, 160 West Virginia Guard members volunteered to extend their deployment until the end of the year.

Joseph Daniels, a retired command sergeant major who served 30 years in the National Guard, said unpredictable threats can still arise despite increased security presence.

“You know, the damage is done. It don’t matter how many troops or how many police you put in an area, all it takes is one hot head who wants to take it out on a uniform whether it’s a police officer or a national guardsman or a soldier, sailor, marine, whatever,” Daniels said.

Daniels, who is based in Mobile, recalled his own deployments to other cities, many of which were for natural disasters.

“We just went down and tried to secure the worst places that got hit, until the local law enforcement could get back on their feet and take the job back off from us and then we would be relieved and come back to home station, in my case was Fort Whiting here in Mobile,” Daniels said.

More than 300 West Virginia National Guard members were part of the deployment, which includes a joint task force made up of troops from Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio and D.C.

The soldiers have patrolled neighborhoods, train stations and other locations, even participating in trash pickup.

The shooting comes just weeks before the extended deployed soldiers were expected to return home.

The Trump administration filed an emergency motion asking a federal appeals court to block a judge’s ruling from last week that ordered an end to the National Guard’s deployment in D.C.

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia has agreed to pay nearly $5.2 million in overdue personal taxes, the latest saga for the former billionaire who has been followed by a trail of financial challenges going back well over a decade.

An attorney for Justice and his wife, Cathy, entered into a joint motion for consent judgment with the federal government Monday, the same day that the government filed a lawsuit saying that the couple “have neglected or refused to make full payment” for the income taxes dating to 2009. An attorney for the U.S. Justice Department’s tax division signed off on the agreement.

Justice had a fortune estimated at $1.9 billion last decade by Forbes magazine, which stripped his billionaire title in 2021, when Justice’s worth had dwindled to an estimated $513 million. Earlier this year, Forbes estimated that Justice’s net worth had disintegrated to “less than zero” due to liabilities that far exceeded assets.

A spokesperson for Justice’s office didn’t immediate respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.

During a briefing with local media in October, Justice asserted that his companies “are complicated and complex” and that his children “are doing a magnificent job” running them. He then repeated past assertions that collection efforts against him were politically motivated, before concluding:. “At the end of the day, I’d say just let it be and see how it all plays out.”

Justice, a former two-term Republican governor who owns dozens of businesses that include coal and agricultural operations, was elected last November to the Senate. He took over the seat vacated by the retiring Joe Manchin, a Democrat who became an independent in 2024 near the end of his second full term.

Justice still has other financial challenges to work out.

The Internal Revenue Service last month filed liens totaling more than $8 million against Justice and his wife on unpaid personal taxes. In September, state tax officials filed $1.4 million in liens against the Justice family’s historic hotel, The Greenbrier, and the resort’s Greenbrier Sporting Club, over unpaid sales taxes.

Last month, a foreclosure auction on several hundred lots owned by the Justice family at a resort community near Beckley was paused. The auction centered on a dispute between the Glade Springs Village Property Owners Association and Justice Holdings over unpaid fees. The state Supreme Court plans to review the case more closely.

In 2021, the IRS filed liens over $1.1 million in unpaid taxes on the Greenbrier Hotel and an additional $80,000 on the resort’s medical clinic. Those debts were paid off later that year.

Justice’s family settled debts last year in a separate case to avoid the Greenbrier Hotel’s foreclosure. The 710-room hotel, which has hosted U.S. presidents, royalty and congressional retreats, had come under threat of being auctioned off on the steps of a Lewisburg courthouse. That was after JPMorgan Chase sold a longstanding loan taken out by Justice to a credit collection company, Beltway Capital, which declared it to be in default.

The state Democratic Party has said efforts to seize the hotel from Justice were “a direct consequence of his own financial incompetence.”

Last year, a union official at the Greenbrier said that Justice’s family was at least $2.4 million behind in payments to an employees’ health insurance fund, putting workers’ coverage at risk. In 2023, dozens of properties owned by the Justice family in three counties were auctioned as payment for delinquent real estate taxes. Others have sought to recoup millions in fines for environmental issues and unsafe working conditions at his company’s coal mines.

Justice bought The Greenbrier resort out of bankruptcy in 2009 for $20.1 million. The sporting club is a private equity club and residential community on the property that opened in 2000.

The resort in White Sulphur Springs that dates to 1778 also has a casino, spa and dozens of amenities and employs around 2,000 workers. The resort held a PGA Tour golf tournament from 2010 until 2019 and has welcomed NFL teams for training camp and practices. A once-secret 112,000-square-foot (10,080-square-meter) underground bunker built for Congress at the Greenbrier in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War now hosts tours.

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