President Donald Trump said Monday he’s taking over Washington’s police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard in the hopes of reducing crime, even as city officials stressed crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.
The president, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.
“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump declared, adding he’d also be “getting rid of the slums.”
For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of his aggressive approach to law enforcement. The District of Columbia’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime.
Attorney General Pam Bondi will assume responsibility for Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, Trump said, as he also railed against potholes and graffiti in the city and called them “embarrassing.” The president did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he’s limited to 30 days under statute unless he gets approval from Congress.
As Trump spoke, demonstrators gathered outside the White House to protest his moves. And local officials rejected the Republican president’s depiction of the district as crime-ridden and called his actions illegal.
“The administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia.”
Schwalb, a Democrat, said violent crime in the district reached historic 30-year lows last year and is down an additional 26% this year.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the “so-called emergency” even as she indicated that Trump’s actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections from such actions.
“While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” Bowser said.
Combating crime
The president dismissed the idea Washington needed to enlarge its 3,500-officer police force, even as he seeks to have more armed personnel going through the city with the goal of reducing crime.
“What you need is rules and regulations, and you need the right people to implement them,” he said.
Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city’s police force. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard.
While Trump has portrayed himself as a friend to law enforcement and enjoyed the political backing from many of their groups, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers.
About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation’s capital as part of Trump’s effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are contributing officers.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn’t immediately have a comment Monday morning.
The National Guard
Bowser, a Democrat, has previously questioned the effectiveness of using the National Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.
Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.
“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is “the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”
Bowser noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023. She stressed during a Monday news conference that she believed Trump’s views of the city were shaped by the “challenging times” of the coronavirus pandemic, when he faced protests and crime spiked as the country began to recover from the outbreak.
Focusing on homelessness
Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington’s homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go, and he did not give details at his news conference Monday.
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday in a social media post. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”
Jesse Rabinowitz, a advocate for homeless people, called Trump’s plan “fascist” and a “waste” of resources. He said the move wasn’t about safety.
“It is about power, and it is about fascism and authoritarianism,” said Rabinowitz, the campaign and communication director for the National Homelessness Law Center. “If Donald Trump wanted to keep D.C. safe, he would fund housing and support. Instead, the Republicans just gutted health care, and they’re passing through a budget that will make homelessness worse. They do not care about helping people.”
