President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to take over the Metropolitan Police Department and order the National Guard to help fight crime in Washington, D.C. is based on a big lie.
The big lie: crime is ravaging the district. In reality, crime is at its lowest level in decades in the nation’s capital. In early January, federal prosecutors in Washington released a press bulletin with the subject line: “Violent crime in D.C. hits 30 year low.” And since then, it has plummeted 26%, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Yet Trump on Monday portrayed D.C. as a crime-infested
hellscape and said Attorney General Pam Bondi would “take command of the
Metropolitan Police Department as of this moment.”
In making his case, Trump ticked off recent violent
incidents in Washington, including the fatal shooting of a congressional intern and the attempted carjacking of
Edward Coristine, an original Department of Government Efficiency staffer known
online as "Big Balls."
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and
bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and
homeless people,” Trump said.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News that an
initial federal effort this weekend was chaotic. As many as 120 FBI agents,
mostly from the FBI Washington Field Office, worked shifts with the
Metropolitan Police Department this weekend, the official said. But agents were
confused about their exact role on the streets and who they reported to at any
given time.
A second federal official said that confusion continued on
Monday. "No one knows who is in charge or what they're supposed to
do," the official said.
Unmarked federal law enforcement vehicles are trailing
patrol cars in Washington to provide support if needed, another federal
official said. Some agents dismissed such efforts a waste of resources, with
one jokingly calling the processions "a federal funeral."
One notable group, the D.C. police union, said it supports
the takeover by the president, saying the department has been beset by
"chronic mismanagement" and "staffing shortages."
“The union agrees that crime is spiraling out of control,
and immediate action is necessary to restore public safety,” it said in a
statement. “However, we emphasize that federal intervention must be a temporary
measure, with the ultimate goal of empowering a fully staffed and supported MPD
to protect our city effectively.”
Concern from former chiefs
The announcement of the federal takeover was met with alarm
by Art Acevedo, a retired police chief who led departments in Houston, Austin
and Miami.
“Not only is it unprecedented, it’s unwarranted,” Acevedo
said. “There’s no reason for it other than the political optics sought by the
administration to pretend that crime is out of control and they are the
saviors.”
Trump said that he had appointed the administrator of the
Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, as the head of the Metropolitan
Police Department.
Cole will report to Bondi, but it is unclear whether Cole
will bring in his own staff to run the various divisions of the roughly 3,500
office police department.
At her own press conference later in the day, Mayor Muriel
Bowser called Trump’s actions “unsettling and unprecedented.” The attorney
general of D.C., Brian Schwab, had also blasted the move and said that he
was exploring legal options, but Bowser acknowledged that Trump
had the authority to temporarily seize control of the police department.
She noted, however, that “nothing about our organizational
chart has changed.”
Trump must notify certain members of Congress within 48
hours about the reason for taking over control of police and the
estimated timeline for federal control, according to the D.C. Home Rule Act.
The act also indicates that Trump can take control of the D.C. police for 30
days, unless Congress authorizes an extension.
Flooding the streets
The policing experts interviewed by NBC News noted that
crime is a nuanced problem that requires a multi-faceted solution that includes
the strengthening of social services.
“To just flood the streets of D.C. with law enforcement” and
“taking over D.C. local police, it seems like a half-baked idea looking for a
problem,” Donell Harvin, a former homeland security and intelligence chief for
Washington, D.C., said on MSNBC.
Snider, the retired NYPD officer, said local police agencies
are far better equipped to address local crime than federal agencies or the
National Guard.
“They know the players. They know the streets. They know
where the violence occurs,” said Snider, who is an adjunct lecturer at the John
Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a policy director of criminal
justice and civil liberties at the R Street Institute, a think tank in D.C.
“Any aid from federal agents or the National Guard should be
supportive measures,” Snider added. “They shouldn’t be coming in and taking
over local policing.”
Acevedo, the retired police chief, said the administration
would be able to make an impact on crime by setting aside more money for local
enforcement, as it has for its migrant crackdown.
“If the administration truly wanted to make a difference at
the state and local level and help make communities safer, it is as simple as
increasing the total federal budget dollar investment for local law enforcement
to recruit, train, equip, and retain the best and the brightest to serve as
peace officers,” he said.
Trump’s penchant for calling in military personnel to tackle
domestic unrest is by now well-established. He did so five years ago during
the George Floyd protests. And just this summer, he ordered the
National Guard and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to help quell large-scale
protests sparked by ramped-up immigration raids.
But the National Guard doesn’t have arresting powers, so
there is a limit to how involved they can be in fighting crime in D.C.
Retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs said National Guard troops are
typically better trained than active duty soldiers to help in urban settings
for things like crowd control.
“But they’re not trained to do the things that police do,
which is a, patrol, and b, investigate,” Jacobs, an NBC News analyst, said in
an interview. “In my view, this is mostly theater, and nothing necessarily useful
will come of it.”
Questions about January 6th
Trump’s takeover of the D.C. police force comes several
months after he pardoned about 1,500 people convicted of crimes, some of them
violent, in the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Daniel Hodges, one of dozens of Metropolitan Police
Department officers who were brutalized during the riot and whose assailants
were among those pardoned by Trump upon his return to office, woke up to the
news that Trump had taken over the MPD after working an overnight shift.
“It’s a big photo op. It’s not going to change anything,”
Hodges said, speaking while off-duty in his personal capacity.
Hodges, who was in the National Guard for six years, said
that National Guard members are not trained in local law enforcement. While
D.C. had law enforcement issues that could be better addressed, Hodges said, he
doesn’t think Bondi is going to have grand insight into how to deploy MPD
officers.
“It’s terrible, it’s disgusting,” Hodges added, “but it’s
not a surprise.”
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