President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was placing Washington D.C.'s police department under federal control and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the U.S. capital to address what he described as a wave of lawlessness, even though data shows violent crime fell to a 30-year low in 2024.
"I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.," Trump told reporters at the White House, flanked by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals."
The Republican president, who said he was formally declaring a public safety emergency, compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others.
Trump also said his administration has started removing homeless encampments "from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks."
"We're getting rid of the slums, too," he said, adding that the U.S. would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.
