On Saturday evening at the White House in Washington, between 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, an incident occurred that once again brought to the surface the discussion about mental health in the United States. 21-year-old Nasir Best, described by police as an "emotionally disturbed person," approached a security checkpoint, drew a handgun, and fired at officers and Secret Service agents.

The security response was fast. Best was shot on the spot and later declared dead. Donald Trump, who was in the residence at the time of the shooting, is safe and remained in a protected location until the situation was resolved. One bystander was wounded, though it's still unclear whether he was hit by the attacker's bullets or by the responding officers'.

The deeper layer of this story is in the attacker's biography. Best, according to media, claimed to be Jesus Christ. In 2025 he had already been arrested for trying to enter another controlled checkpoint at the White House with the same claim. He was then released and referred for psychiatric evaluation. He also had an order to keep a distance from the residence. Yet - a year later, with a handgun, he showed up at the same place. With the same outcome, but this time with no second chance.

The question psychiatrists and security experts have been asking for years: what's the role of monitoring systems for people with serious mental disturbances, if the same person can stage two near-identical incidents within a year? The answer is boring - the systems are overloaded, underfunded and fragmented between state and federal levels. Similar stories happen every week in smaller towns with no audience. This time - at the White House, with the president inside. That's enough for a news item. But also for a question that has echoed for a long time without an answer.