US President Donald Trump stated he’s deploying 800 Nationwide Guard troopers to Washington, DC, and taking management of its police division after claiming that crime was “uncontrolled” within the capital metropolis.
The nation’s capital is “changing into a scenario of full and complete lawlessness,” Trump stated at an August 11 information convention as he invoked the Dwelling Rule Act to take federal management of the town.
“Washington, DC, ought to be one of many most secure, cleanest and most stunning cities wherever on this planet, and we’re going to make it that.”
However most of the particulars Trump cited don’t stand as much as scrutiny.
Trump’s actions are a step in the direction of making good on his risk of a federal takeover of the district after carjackers severely beat a former Division of Authorities Effectivity worker.
In a information briefing after Trump’s announcement, Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser stated the district would cooperate with the federal authorities and added that she speaks with Trump typically in regards to the metropolis’s progress on crime.
“In actual fact, my first assembly with him after he was elected the second time, we went over the crime tendencies; we went over how we’re seeing decreases, so the president is learn in on our efforts,” she stated.
So why did Trump resolve to take DC below federal management, and did he falsely declare that the crime charge had spiked within the capital metropolis?
Can Trump invoke a federal takeover of Washington, DC, below Part 740 of DC Dwelling Rule Act?
Trump can’t take over the town with out congressional approval. He’s utilizing an emergency provision to briefly oversee the district’s police power.
The US Structure created the District of Columbia as a seat of the federal authorities. In 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Dwelling Rule Act, enabling district residents to elect a mayor and metropolis council. The regulation provides the district autonomy for native governance, however the metropolis nonetheless solutions to Congress on issues together with budgetary oversight and the power to overturn native laws.
Part 740 of the Dwelling Rule Act permits the president to briefly take management of the town’s police division throughout an emergency.
In an August 11 govt order, Trump invoked Part 740, citing crime within the district as an emergency. The chief order says federal use of the district’s Metropolitan Police Division is required to take care of regulation and order; shield federal buildings and monuments; and guarantee “circumstances vital for the orderly functioning of the Federal Authorities.”
Trump delegated operational management of the division to US Lawyer Common Pam Bondi.
The emergency powers can’t lengthen previous 48 hours, the regulation says, until the president notifies Congress in writing in regards to the purpose and the time interval wanted. If he notifies Congress, Trump can lengthen the emergency for as much as 30 days.
Did Washington, DC, homicides attain the best charge ever in 2023?
Trump stated, “Murders in 2023 reached the best charge, in all probability ever. They are saying 25 years, however they don’t know what which means, as a result of it simply goes again 25 years. Can’t be worse.”
The town’s Metropolitan Police Division knowledge confirmed 274 homicides in 2023, the best quantity over the previous 20 years. Trump omitted that the division’s preliminary crime knowledge reveals homicides have declined 32 % since 2023, to 187 in 2024.
The murder charge continues to say no. This yr, via August 11, homicides decreased by 12 % in contrast with the identical time interval in 2024.
Jeff Asher, an analyst for AH Datalytics, advised PolitiFact that the murder charge elevated considerably after 2020, peaking in 2023 at 39 per 100,000 folks.
That was the best charge since 2003, however far beneath the 1991 peak of 81 per 100,000 folks. The falling charge matches nationwide tendencies, Asher stated.
White Home spokesperson Steven Cheung stated on X that the town police statistics are usually not as they appear. Cheung connected a July WRC-TV story a couple of district police commander’s Could suspension after he was accused of altering crime statistics.
Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton advised the TV station that union members and administration stated the command workers need to “be sure that these classifications of those stories are adjusted over time to be sure that the general crime stats keep down.”
A police spokesperson advised PolitiFact that Commander Michael Pulliam is on administrative go away and the division can’t touch upon lively inside investigations. The union didn’t reply to our request for remark.
Have violent crimes comparable to carjacking elevated in Washington, DC?
Trump stated, “The variety of automobile thefts has doubled over the previous 5 years, and the variety of carjackings has greater than tripled.”
Trump is appropriate that the variety of these crimes elevated, however he didn’t point out a latest decline in carjackings.
The metropolis’s dashboard reveals carjackings rose from 2020 via 2023 earlier than declining in 2024. This yr, via August 9, there have been 188 carjackings in contrast with 299 throughout the identical time interval in 2024, and in contrast with 607 in 2023, a police spokesperson advised PolitiFact.
The town’s preliminary automobile theft knowledge reveals a 25 % drop from 2023 to 2024, and automobile thefts are basically flat yr up to now in 2025 in contrast with the identical interval final yr.
“Auto theft elevated an enormous quantity in DC after 2020 earlier than surging once more in 2023 following the video being posted exhibiting the best way to steal sure fashions of Kia and Hyundai automobiles,” Asher stated. The “Kia Boyz” phenomenon occurred nationwide.
General, the town’s knowledge reveals that, via August 11 this yr, in contrast with 2024, violent crime within the district declined by 26 %. Washington, DC’s violent crime lower is a part of a nationwide pattern in main cities.
Does implementing cashless bail have an effect on crime charges?
Trump stated, “The novel left Metropolis Council adopted no money bail. By the way in which, each place within the nation the place you haven’t any money bail is a catastrophe … Someone murders any individual, and so they’re out on no money bail earlier than the day is out.”
“No money bail” or “cashless bail” permits sure defendants awaiting trial to be launched from custody with out paying bail. Even with cashless bail legal guidelines in place, defendants accused of violent crimes, comparable to homicide, can nonetheless be detained if judges decide they’re a public security risk or flight threat.
Misdemeanour costs usually lead to larger charges of launch, in accordance with the district’s Pretrial Providers Company.
In 2024, 89 % of defendants weren’t rearrested throughout the pre-trial interval, the company stated.
Proponents of eliminating money bail say a money requirement harms low-income folks. Those that assist money bail say it ensures defendants seem in court docket, and eradicating it threatens public security. Washington, DC, was a pioneer in pretrial reform, largely eliminating money bail within the Nineteen Nineties.
There’s a scarcity of skilled consensus on the impression of cashless bail on crime charges.
A 2024 report by the left-leaning Brennan Centre for Justice at NYU Regulation stated researchers discovered “no statistically important relationship” between bail reform and crime charges. The research checked out crime charge knowledge from 2015 via 2021 for 33 cities throughout the US, 22 of which had carried out some sort of bail reform.
The Jail Coverage Initiative, a nonprofit that helps lowering the jail inhabitants, measured public security earlier than and after pretrial reforms in 4 states and 9 cities and counties, together with Washington, DC. Usually, researchers discovered that releasing folks pre-trial didn’t put communities in danger for extra crime.
The Trump administration has cited a 2022 report from the Yolo County, California, district legal professional’s workplace as proof that cashless bails trigger elevated crime. The report explored the results of California’s momentary bail suspension throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, discovering that 420 out of 595 folks — 70.6 % — have been rearrested after being launched from jail below this technique.
A November 2024 paper by the Public Coverage Institute of California additionally discovered that implementing emergency bail orders induced “notable will increase in each the chance and variety of rearrests inside 30 days”. Nonetheless, as soon as reversed, the return to money bail didn’t have an effect on the variety of rearrests.
