President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will place Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deploy the National Guard to the nation’s capital, citing what he described as a surge in violent crime — a claim contradicted by official statistics showing crime at historic lows.
“I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.,” Trump said at the White House, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.”
The move marks Trump’s latest use of executive power to intervene in Democratic-led cities. Federal agents from more than a dozen agencies — including the FBI, ICE, DEA, and ATF — have already been active in the city in recent days.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back, calling Trump’s claims “false” and noting that violent crime in the city fell 35% in 2024 and dropped another 26% in the first seven months of 2025, reaching its lowest level in more than three decades. Overall crime is down 7% this year, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Despite the decline, gun violence remains a concern. In 2023, Washington ranked third in gun homicide rates among major U.S. cities, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
Trump has previously deployed the National Guard to major cities, including sending 5,000 troops to Los Angeles in June to respond to protests over immigration raids — a move criticized by local officials as unnecessary and provocative. His decision to send troops to Washington comes as a federal trial begins in San Francisco over whether his administration violated the law by deploying military forces without state approval.
The president has unique authority over the D.C. National Guard, unlike in U.S. states where governors typically control deployments. The Guard has been called to Washington in past crises, including the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd — deployments condemned by civil rights leaders as excessive.
Under federal law, the U.S. military is generally barred from direct involvement in domestic law enforcement.
