President Donald Trump has said he will deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington DC and is taking control of its police department to fight crime.
At a press conference, he declared "Liberation Day" for the city and pledged to "rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse".
However, Mayor Muriel Bowser has said the city has "seen a huge decrease in crime" and that it was "at a 30-year violent crime low".
BBC Verify looks at what the figures show about violent crime in the capital and how it compares to other cities in the US.
Trump's executive order declaring "a crime emergency in the District of Columbia" mentions "rising violence in the capital". In his press conference he made repeated references to crime being "out of control".
