On August 11, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was going to take control of Washington D.C. police, and use the military to help his takeover of the capital, and he justified it with lies.
The president took control through an executive order that declared a “crime emergency” in the city, invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to carry out this seizure of power.
Attorney General Pam Bondi will assume control of Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police and the Trump regime will send 800 National Guardsmen to the city.
Trump blamed supposedly high crime rates for his federal takeover of the U.S. capital city, touting record highs in murder rate and carjackings.
But the president’s claims about crime in the capital city were misleading.
Trump cited 2023’s murder rate in Washington D.C., saying it was the highest in 25 years, which is true.
However he did not mention that murder rates in Washington D.C. steadily decreased in the nearly two years since 2023’s peak.
Homicides dropped by 32% from 2023 to 2024, and violent crime declined by 35% in that timeframe, according to Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police.
That downward trend is still continuing this year, as year-to-date crime numbers from Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police show a 12% drop in homicide and a 26% decline in violent crime overall as of August 11.
Motor vehicle theft also dropped 25% from 2023 to 2024, and theft from automobiles went down by 14%.
Trump claimed that the city was forcing its staff to publish “phony numbers on crime” at Monday’s presser.
Except the federal U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia backs up the city’s reported crime numbers.
The office for the District of Columbia reported on January 3 that violent crime in the nation’s capital was the “lowest it has been in over 30 years” in 2024.
As the president uses falsities to justify his hostile takeover of the nation’s capital, people are already starting to resist.
DC Mayor Muriel Browser said she disagrees that there is a crime crisis in the District, that violent crime is at a 30-year low, and that President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is placing the police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard in the nation’s capital is an effort to use his authority to “intrude on our autonomy.”
Protesters echoed the mayor’s sentiment as they were out just blocks from where Trump declared the public safety emergency, waving signs reading, “No National Guard” and “Free D.C.”
Randy Kindle, a veteran who was protesting, told WTOP.COM, “All the troops in D.C., you have a choice on which side you’re on now, so I hope you do the right things and stand by your brothers and sisters in the streets.”
Nadine Seiler waved a large banner that said, “This is all manufactured for him to take over D.C.”
“As they said in the press conference, this is the start of it. However D.C. plays out, he’s going to go into other blue cities and do the same thing,” Seiler said to WTOP.COM.
While the president used a clause in the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to implement his control over Washington D.C., he also threatened to take over multiple cities that this law wouldn’t apply to.
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are also in Trump’s sights for hostile federal takeover.
He already threatened to arrest New York’s mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani if he does not cooperate with ICE and sent the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to support in the violence against protestors and journalists earlier this year.
It appears that Trump’s takeover of DC is designed to lay the groundwork for saying there’s a national emergency and then calling for martial law. “Right now, they’re coming for trans folks, homeless folks and migrants. But rest assured, soon they will come for everyone, says, Jesse Rabinowitz, National Homelessness Law Center, at the protest.
The resistance to what is happening in DC is already growing, and hopefully it will grow to huge proportions.
Mark Credico is an independent journalist working in Southern Nevada. He covers subjects including government accountability, homelessness, workers' unions and the environment.
I read elsewhere that this is part of the tech oligarchs’ plan ti create “freedom cities,” i.e., fiefdoms for the tech kings. Mass resistance is needed to stop these fascists!