17th St. NW & Pennsylvania Ave. NW — Reported Shooting Location
A Garfield Heights man is facing federal charges after investigators traced a 9mm handgun recovered following a deadly shootout outside the White House back to his 2022 purchase, and then allegedly caught him lying about how he lost track of it. Federal prosecutors say Cylinntheo Yates bought the gun in March 2022, sold it at some point afterward, and then repeatedly gave investigators a false account of how the weapon left his hands after it turned up in the possession of Nasire Best, the 21-year-old Maryland man killed in a gunfight with Secret Service agents outside the White House in May.
According to Cleveland.com, federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment against Yates on Monday in federal court in Cleveland, charging him with three counts of making false statements to federal investigators. The case stems from a shooting that authorities say occurred shortly after 6 p.m. on May 23 near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., where Uniformed Division Secret Service officers returned fire and killed Best after he pulled a handgun from a messenger bag and emptied his magazine toward a security checkpoint, according to CBS News.
How Investigators Traced the Gun to Ohio
Authorities traced the gun Best possessed back to Yates after the shooting, per the indictment cited in the Cleveland.com report. Garfield Heights police and ATF agents first interviewed Yates on May 23, 2026, the same day as the shooting, and followed up with additional ATF and Secret Service interviews on May 25 and June 3…