Violent crime in Washington, D.C. fell by double digits in 2024 and again in the first half of 2025, yet on Monday, President Donald Trump officially declared a “public safety emergency” and said he is invoking federal “emergency” powers, federalizing the D.C. Metropolitan Police force, ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to seize control.
“This is an emergency,” Trump claimed to reporters at the White House.
He also is ordering the deployment of National Guard troops, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers.
“We will bring in the military if needed,” Trump said, in addition to the National Guard.
“A federal takeover of the D.C. police force would be an extraordinary assertion of power in a place where local leaders have few avenues to resist federal encroachment,” The Washington Post had reported late Sunday night.
With the Secretaries of the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Interior, and the FBI Director, President Trump at one point appeared to almost suggest a rollout of federal military troops into D.C. might be just the start, and other cities may see similar takeovers.
Multiple rankings of violent crime do not show Washington D.C., a city of just over 700,000 people, in the top 10 or top 25 most violent or dangerous cities per capita.
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U.S. News and World Report shows Memphis, Tennessee as the number one most dangerous place to live in the United States. Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit round out the top five. The majority of the top 25 are all in red states.
Security.org took a deep dive into crime statistics, and found that on a per capita basis, East St. Louis, Illinois tops their list of the 25 most dangerous cities. (The report from 2018 was updated in May.) Two cities in Alabama come in second and third, Chester, Pennsylvania, comes in fourth, and St. Louis, Missouri fifth.
“Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in January reported.
Last Tuesday, the President threatened to “federalize” Washington, D.C., after a DOGE employee allegedly was ““beaten mercilessly by local thugs,” according to Trump.
The President is offering a different point of view, alleging on Sunday that in D.C., “the Crime Numbers get worse.”
“Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today!” he continued on Monday morning. “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”
And claiming that this is “all going to happen very fast,” also on Sunday Trump wrote: “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. 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.”
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Does Trump have the legal authority to mount a federal takeover of Washington, D.C.?
“He could theoretically do this for up to 30 days under the city’s Home Rule Charter by claiming an ’emergency,’ which the Charter doesn’t define with specificity,” wrote Professor of Law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance on Sunday.
Critics have been blasting the President.
“Crime rates are down in D.C., there are no riots or other unusual threats- so why are there soldiers on our streets? ‘Police State’ used to refer to other countries, not ours,” wrote The New Yorker’s award-winning investigative reporter Jane Mayer.
“With Trump set to use crime as a fake justification to threaten DC today, media should make one thing clear: At this point his pattern of manufacturing pretexts for militarizing domestic law enforcement has become undeniable,” wrote The New Republic’s Greg Sargent.
“Trump just ordered homeless people to leave Washington DC ‘IMMEDIATELY’ and be shipped ‘far from the Capital.’ Violent crime is down 26% but facts don’t matter when you need a scapegoat for your authoritarian power grab. Meanwhile he’s rolling troops in,”observed popular liberal podcaster David Pakman.
“Crime in D.C. is at historic lows. Trump isn’t calling in the national guard to fight crime; he’s doing it as a power play and a test of his authority. If we have to flood the streets with the military during peacetime, just imagine what he’ll do during the elections,” warned Project Liberal executive director Joshua Reed Eakle.
“The president falsely claimed [during his press conference] the 2023 number of murders in DC was probably the district’s highest ever. Not even close. It did spike to 274 in 2023, but it was 482 in 1991. And he didn’t mention that it plunged to 187 in 2024 or that it has fallen further year-to-date in 2025,” reported CNN’s Daniel Dale.
“And do Americans realize that Trump is turning the U.S. into a surveillance and police state? That immigrants were the test case and it will expand to everyone? And that now he is using ‘crime’ to start testing the tactics that will expand across the country,” wrote Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
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