Troops requested by Trump team are ‘ready to respond’ but ‘not on a political policing mission’, veteran group says
West Virginia is to deploy 300 to 400 national guard troops to Washington DC at the request of the Trump administration, the state’s governor said on Saturday.
West Virginia governor Patrick Morrisey’s office said in a statement that the deployment is “a show of commitment to public safety and regional cooperation” and the state will provide equipment and “approximately 300-400 skilled personnel as directed”.
The deployment comes after Donald Trump ordered hundreds of Washington DC national guard troops to mount a show of force and temporarily took over the city’s police department to curb what the president depicts as a crime and homelessness emergency in the nation’s capital.
Data compiled by the DC police department shows that violent crime was actually at a 30-year-low when Trump returned to office in January, and has declined a further 26% since then.
