Donald Trump placed the DC Metropolitan police department under federal control on Monday, deploying the national guard while describing a “lawless” city in ways that are sharply at odds with crime statistics reported by the police.
Invoking section 740, of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, the president vowed to allow police to “do whatever the hell they want” in the face of provocations. “That’s the only language they [alleged criminals] understand.
“They like to spit in the face of the police,” Trump said at the White House. “You spit, and we hit, and they get hit real hard.”
At his press conference, where reporters were squeezed into both aisles, Trump continued: “I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful Capital was.”
He continued: “We’re declaring a public safety emergency in the District of Columbia and attorney general Pam Bondi is taking command of the Metropolitan police department as of this moment.
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said national guard units would take to the streets over the coming week. “They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners,” he said.
Section 740 requires Mayor Muriel Bowser to provide “such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate”, when the president determines that there are “special conditions” requiring it. The president can only exercise such control under the act for 30 days without Congress passing a law extending it.
Kash Patel, the director of the FBI added: “We’re going to clean up Washington DC. We’re going to do it the right way, the lawful way. We’ll make sure Washington DC is safe again.”
After the former General Services Administration staffer Edward Coristine – a 19-year-old on the so-called department of government efficiency team nicknamed “Big Balls” – appeared to have been attacked by a group of young people last week near his car, Trump began discussing a return to federal control of the city and the use of national guard to quell street crime.
Violent crime in Washington DC has fallen sharply since 2023, shaking off pandemic increases to reach a 30-year low on the day Trump took office, and have fallen 26% further this year according to weekly reports from the Metropolitan police department. The change in crime rates is consistent with dramatic decreases in violence in large cities across the country.
Nonetheless, Trump ordered a range of federal law enforcement agencies to deploy on to DC streets over the weekend in a surge. About 450 officers from the United States Capitol police, the Federal Protective Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other agencies were present into the city’s quadrants over the weekend.
At the press conference on Monday morning, Trump described a city “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people”.
The DC attorney general, Jeanine Pirro, who was only confirmed to her role on 2 August, said that she sees “too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else”.
Pirro expressed her frustration with, what she sees as, excessive leniency when it comes to the way juveniles are prosecuted. “I can’t arrest them. I can’t prosecute them,” she said. “They go to family court, and they get to do yoga and arts and crafts. Enough, it changes today.”
Pirro called for changes to the law to allow a wider range of juvenile cases to be heard in adult court.
Again taking to social media on Sunday, Trump demanded that homeless residents of the capital flee before him, posting images of encampments ostensibly taken from his motorcade.
Related: Trump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DC
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”
This message follows an executive order Trump issued on 24 July, demanding an end to federal support for Housing First policies that do not require sobriety or mental health compliance as a precondition for receiving housing, encouraging municipalities to remove public encampments of people experiencing homelessness and urging an increase in federal funding to municipalities that enforce laws prohibiting “urban camping”, “loitering” and “urban squatting”.
Homelessness rates in the nation’s capital have also been falling, with the most recent point-in-time count showing a decrease from 2024.
