'I want to hate': How Trump's decades-long love of violence could finally backfire

In 1989, Donald Trump purchased full-page ads in four New York newspapers, including the New York Times, calling for the return of the death penalty after a white jogger was brutally attacked in Central Park. Five Black and Latino teens were arrested for the assault, and, after confessions later determined to have been coerced by the police, they were convicted, even though there was no physical evidence linking any of them to the crime.

In 2002, after the five young men had spent years in prison for a crime they did not commit, their convictions were vacated when DNA evidence linked a serial rapist, Matias Reyes, to the crime. Reyes ultimately confessed, and provided an accounting of the crime that matched details prosecutors already knew, and forensics confirmed he had acted alone.

After the crime was solved, the case became symbolic for systemic injustice, police brutality, and racial profiling. Trump never apologized to the five men, and has never acknowledged what would have happened to them had his death penalty campaign succeeded.

He wants to hate

Trump’s vitriol has percolated in the intervening decades since the Central Park Five. After his full-page ads claimed “roving bands of wild criminals” were controlling NYC streets in 1989, this week he claimed “roving mobs of wild youth” were terrorizing streets in D.C.

Again using inaccurate claims to portray soaring violence, Trump announced on Monday that he was deploying the National Guard and federalizing the D.C. police department in order to rein in “complete and total lawlessness.”

Trump’s falsified charts with selectively outdated D.C. crime statistics were so patently wrong he was factchecked by the BBC, NPR, NYT, PBS and the Justice Department, whose data show that violent crime in Washington is at a 30-year low.

Trump’s addiction to hate and division, promoted through falsehoods, has persisted since the Central Park crime. When then-Mayor Ed Koch called for public healing, seeking to unite rather than divide his city, Trump wasn’t having it. His ad shot back, “"Maybe hate is what we need… I want to hate these muggers and murderers... They should be forced to suffer … Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will…”

Trump has been true to his word at least on this, and has continued ratcheting up false portrayals of dystopian urban hellscapes riddled with crime. Experts have shown a link between Trump’s language, trickle-down racism, and an increase in hate crime.

Support for police brutality

Trump’s early death penalty ads also revealed his thirst for police brutality. He wrote in 1989 that police should be “unshackled” from the constant threat of being called to account for “police brutality,” a sentiment he has echoed ever since:

• In a 2017 speech, Trump said police should not to be “nice” to suspects and encouraged arresting officers not to shield suspects’ heads as they loaded them into squad cars
• In 2020, he celebrated the police killing of Micael Reinoehl, a community activist
• In 2020, in response to protests over police brutality in the George Floyd case, he asked his staff if the protestors couldn’t “just be shot”
• In 2023, he said police should respond to shoplifters by shooting them
• In 2024, he said that one day of “violent policing” would end crime, suggesting that if police could brutalize the population, crime would disappear
• In April, he issued an Executive Order “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement” promoting aggressive police tactics and making it more difficult to punish brutality
• On August 11, announcing his “federal takeover” of Washington D.C., Trump said police and military forces could “do whatever the hell they want” to people on the streets, expressly encouraging brutality.

The problem with getting “tougher” on crime, without addressing community needs, is that it doesn’t work, and often leads to an increase in crime.

Trump’s ineptitude also undermines police accountability efforts, further eroding trust between police and communities. By encouraging police to use excessive force, Trump spreads distrust of police among the public, needlessly endangering the lives of both citizens and police officers.

He may get the violence he craves

It is widely assumed that Trump is using D.C. as a test run for the federal occupation of other Democratic-led cities. During the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, when Trump still had adults in the room to advise him, Trump also wanted to “take over” D.C., but officials warned that such a heavy-handed approach could backfire. This year, in the absence of competent advisors, Trump is indulging his most dangerous impulses.

We now know that, aside from the D.C. “takeover,” Trump is developing a National Guard “strike force” to confront and quell protests, demonstrations, and civil dissent. This “strike force” will act as Trump’s personal militia to crush constitutionally protected speech, in Democratic-run cities, located in Democratic-run states.

Setting aside the glaring unconstitutionality of his plan, military service members aren’t trained to de-escalate tensions, manage crowds, or solve crimes. They are trained to kill. That is why the Posse Comitatus Act forbids using military forces against civilian populations, except in cases of rebellion or insurrection.

The purpose of Trump’s “takeover” of Washington D.C. isn’t to address escalating crime, because D.C. crime isn’t escalating. It isn’t to deal with potholes, beautification, or anything else Trump mentioned in his incoherent August 11 press conference.

Trump is “taking over” D.C., sending in federal troops just as he did in Los Angeles, to normalize an expanded police state. He hopes to keep control of D.C. until it’s time for a J6 rerun, as he scales his 1989 declaration of hate, control, and brutality nationwide.

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Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free