US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was putting Washington’s police service on Monday under federal control and ordered the National Guard to deploy in the national capital to combat what he described as a wave of anarchy, despite statistics showing that violent crimes reached a 30 -year hollow in 2024.
“I deploy the National Guard to help restore the law, order and public security in Washington, D C.,” Trump told the White House journalists, flanked by administration officials, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth and the prosecutor General Pam Bondi. “Our capital was overwhelmed by violent gangs and blood criminals.”
Trump’s announcement marks its latest efforts to target democratic cities by exercising executive power on traditionally local issues. He rejected criticism that he made a crisis to justify the expansion of the presidential authority. Hundreds of officers and agents of more than a dozen federal agencies, including the FBI, the ice, the DEA and the ATF, have already taken place throughout the city in recent days.
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The Democrat mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, rejected Trump’s statements, saying that the city “does not feel a crime peak” and noting that violent crimes reached its lowest level in more than three decades last year.
Violent crimes fell 26% in the first seven months of 2025 after falling by 35% in 2024, and overall crime decreased by 7%, according to the city’s police service. However, armed violence remains a concern. In 2023, Washington had the third highest homicide rate among American cities with populations of more than 500,000, according to the advocacy group EveryTown for firearms.
The deployment of national guard troops reflects a tactic that Trump used in Los Angeles, where he sent 5,000 soldiers in June in response to demonstrations against immigration raids of his administration. State and premises officials opposed this decision as useless and inflammatory.
A federal trial began on Monday in San Francisco on Monday to determine whether the Trump administration violated the US law in deployment of the troops of the National Guard and the US Marines without the approval of the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
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The president has a large authority over the 2,700 members of the National Guard of DC, unlike the states where governors generally hold this power. Guard troops were sent to Washington several times, including after the attack on January 6, 2021, the American Capitol by a crowd of supporters of Trump.
During his first mandate, Trump also sent the National Guard to Washington in 2020 to repress mainly peaceful demonstrations during national demonstrations against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. Civil rights leaders have denounced the deployment, to which Bowser opposed.
The US military is generally prohibited under the Act to participate directly in the national law enforcement activities.
