By Ashraf Khalil and Lindsay Whitehurst
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The new picture of law enforcement in the nation’s capital began taking shape Tuesday as some of the 800 National Guard members deployed by the Trump administration began arriving. The city’s police and federal officials, projecting cooperation, took the first steps in a partnership to reduce crime in what President Donald Trump called a lawless city.
The influx came the morning after the Republican president announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the District’s police department, something the law allows him to do temporarily. He cited a crime emergency — but referred to the same crime that city officials stress is already falling.
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By evening, the administration was saying that National Guard members were expected to be on the streets starting Tuesday night, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Army said there were no specifics on the locations they will be patrolling, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason.
Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to work alongside the federal officials Trump has tasked with overseeing the city’s law enforcement, while insisting the police chief remained in charge of the department and its officers.
“How we got here or what we think about the circumstances — right now we have more police, and we want to make sure we use them,” she told reporters.
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The tone was a shift from the day before, when Bowser said Trump’s plan to take over the Metropolitan Police Department and call in the National Guard was not a productive step and argued his perceived state of emergency simply doesn’t match the declining crime numbers. Still, the law gives the federal government more sway over the capital city than in U.S. states, and Bowser said her administration’s ability to push back is limited.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media that the meeting was productive.
The law allows Trump to take over the D.C. police for up to 30 days, though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested it could last longer as authorities later “reevaluate and reassess.” Extending federal control past that time would require Congressional approval, something likely tough to achieve in the face of Democratic resistance.
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About 850 officers and agents fanned out across Washington on Monday and arrested 23 people overnight, Leavitt said. The charges, she said, included homicide, drunk driving, gun and drug crimes and subway fare evasion. She didn’t immediately provide further information on the arrests.
The U.S. Park Police has also removed 70 homeless encampments over the last five months, she said. People who were living in them can leave, go to a homeless shelter or go into drug addiction treatment, Leavitt said. Those who refuse could face fines or jail time.
While Trump invokes his plan by saying that “we’re going to take our capital back,” Bowser and the MPD maintain that violent crime overall in Washington has decreased to a 30-year low after a sharp rise in 2023. Carjackings, for example, dropped about 50% in 2024 and are down again this year. More than half of those arrested, however, are juveniles, and the extent of those punishments is a point of contention for the Trump administration.
Where the power actually lies
Bowser contends that all the power resides with Trump and that local officials can do little other than comply and make the best of it. As long as Washington remains a federal enclave with limited autonomy under the 1973 Home Rule Act, she said, it will remain vulnerable to such takeovers.
Trump is the first president to use the law’s Section 740 to take over Washington’s police for up to 30 days during times of emergencies.
For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in D.C. 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.
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Bowser’s claims about successfully driving down violent crime rates received backing earlier this year from an unlikely source. Ed Martin, Trump’s original choice for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, issued a press release in April hailing a 25% drop in violent crime rates from the previous year.
Trump’s newly confirmed top federal prosecutor for Washington, onetime judge and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, argued that violent crime remains high and a significant issue for victims, despite recent decreases. “These were vibrant human beings cut down because of illegal guns,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Ali Swenson in New York and video journalist River Zhang contributed reporting.
