President Donald Trump announced Monday morning that he is placing the police force of Washington, D.C., under federal control.
During a press conference at the White House, the president formally invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which allows him to take control of the police in the nation’s capital. Trump added that he will be deploying 800 National Guard troops to combat what he called “out of control” crime in the city.
“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re gonna take our capital back. We’re taking it back,” he said. “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals—roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.”
Trump first threatened to take over the MPD following the assault of a former DOGE staffer earlier in the month. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump painted D.C. as a city under siege by “caravans of mass youth rampaging through city streets at all times of the day.” He promised a violent crackdown on lawbreakers in the city.
“They fight back until you knock the hell out of them. It’s the only language they understand,” Trump said. “You spit and we hit, and they can hit real hard.”
Public policy advocates are slamming the president’s move. Speaking to Salon, Insha Rahman of the Vera Institute of Justice called the decision a “political power grab” and an “overreach.”
“Trump exerts his power in Washington, D.C., not to make things better, but to make a spectacle,” Rahman said.
The Ralph Nader-founded think tank Public Citizen called the takeover legally dubious and unnecessary in a statement.
“Trump aims to distract from his political weakness, and he’s doing it at the expense of residents of the District of Columbia and their well-being. The people of Washington, D.C., not to mention the people of the United States, deserve better,” the organization shared. “There is no street crime epidemic in Washington, with the violent street crime rate at its lowest point in decades.”
The MPD’s data shows that violent crime is down in the city compared to last year. The Washington Post reports that the violent crime rate in the nation’s capital is at its lowest point since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
