US President Donald Trump said on Monday he was putting Washington's police department under federal control and ordering the National Guard to deploy to the nation's capital to combat what he said was a wave of lawlessness, despite statistics showing that violent crime hit a 30-year low in 2024.
"I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, DC," Trump told reporters at the White House, flanked by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals."
Trump's announcement is his latest effort to target Democratic cities by exercising executive power over traditionally local matters. He has dismissed criticism that he is manufacturing a crisis to justify expanding presidential authority.
Hundreds of officers and agents from over a dozen federal agencies, including the FBI, ICE, DEA, and ATF, have already fanned out across the city in recent days.
The Democratic major of Washington, Muriel Bowser, has pushed back on Trump's claims, saying the city is "not experiencing a crime spike" and highlighting that violent crime hit its lowest level in more than three decades last year.
Violent crime fell 26% in the first seven months of 2025 after dropping 35% in 2024, and overall crime dropped 7%, according to the city's police department.
But gun violence remains an issue. In 2023, Washington had the third-highest gun homicide rate among US cities with populations over 500,000, according to gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The deployment of National Guard troops is a tactic the Republican president used in Los Angeles, where he dispatched 5,000 troops in June in response to protests over his administration's immigration raids. State and local officials objected to Trump's decision as unnecessary and inflammatory.
A federal trial was set to begin on Monday in San Francisco on whether the Trump administration violated US law by deploying National Guard troops and US Marines without the approval of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
The president has broad authority over the 2,700 members of the DC National Guard, unlike in states where governors typically hold the power to activate troops. Guard troops have been dispatched to Washington many times, including in response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
During his first term, Trump sent the National Guard into Washington in 2020 to help quash mostly peaceful demonstrations during nationwide protests over police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. Civil rights leaders denounced the deployment, which was opposed by Bowser.
The US military is generally prohibited under law from directly participating in domestic law enforcement activities.
