Trump seizes control of Washington police, deploys National Guard

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced he would take federal control of Washington, DC’s police department and deploy 800 National Guard troops there, escalating his push to exert power over the nation’s capital. 

Mr Trump on Aug 11 also threatened to insert federal personnel into other cities, including New York and Chicago, if they did not crack down on what he called “out of control” crime. 

During a White House news conference, Mr Trump painted a nightmarish picture of a Washington that’s been “overtaken” by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth” that was at direct odds with statistics showing plummeting crime rates. Violent crimes in the capital reached a 30-year low in 2024, the Justice Department announced weeks before Mr Trump took office in January. 

“We’re not going to let it happen anymore,” Mr Trump told reporters. “We’re going to have a safe, beautiful capital and it’s going to happen very quickly.”

Mr Trump has sought to flex his authority over states, cities and towns run by Democrats since returning to power, arguing their policies have led to rampant crime and homelessness. Leaders there have dismissed those accusations as thinly veiled excuses for the president to seize power. 

Earlier in 2025, Mr Trump

deployed the National Guard to quell protests

over immigration raids in Los Angeles against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom. A federal court is due to hear arguments on Aug 11 in a lawsuit filed by Mr Newsom alleging Mr Trump broke the law by federalising the state’s guard. 

Mr Trump faces fewer legal curbs on what he can do with Washington, which as a federal district under the US Constitution has limited self-government.

He declared a public safety emergency under a provision of DC’s Home Rule Act that allows him to temporarily assume control of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department. It’s not clear how long the arrangement will last. 

Attorney-General Pam Bondi will oversee the takeover, Mr Trump said, while Drug Enforcement Administration chief Terry Cole will serve as acting MPD head. 

The National Guard personnel will come from the DC area rather than out of state, according to Army spokesman Col. Dave Butler.

It’s unlikely at this point that they will have arrest authority or carry weapons; Guard members are intended to provide logistics and administrative support to law enforcement, Mr Butler said in a statement.

“We will have full, seamless, integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement and will deploy officers across the district with an overwhelming presence,” Mr Trump said. 

Army leadership, which controls the DC National Guard, is working through details regarding what parts of the DC Guard will be deployed as well as whether helicopter surveillance flights will be flown.

Mr Trump made the announcement at a time when he is facing pressure to wind down Russia’s war in Ukraine with a

meeting with Mr Vladimir Putin

set for Aug 15. The president is also grappling with sustained criticism from some of his supporters over his administration’s handling of files related to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The moves come after a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer said he was assaulted in a carjacking attempt earlier in August.

The White House subsequently announced that law enforcement officers from more than a dozen agencies – including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and DEA – would deploy across the city for at least a week.

Mr Trump said there would be immediate efforts to target known gangs, drug dealers, and criminal networks. He has previously said it would also look to remove homeless people from the streets and move them to areas outside the capital.

“You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something, and you don’t have that now,” the president said, flanked by officials including Cole, Bondi and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The president’s efforts to exert greater control in the capital risks inflaming tensions with the city’s roughly 700,000 residents, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and who have borne the economic brunt of Mr Trump’s efforts to dramatically reduce the federal workforce.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser on Aug 10 said comparisons of the capital city to war-torn countries were “hyperbolic and false,” pointing that crime rates have fallen from when they spiked in 2023. 

Ms Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s non-voting delegate to Congress, called Mr Trump’s move a “historic assault on DC home rule” and “a counterproductive, escalatory seizure of DC’s resources to use for purposes not supported by DC residents.”

The Republican-controlled Congress earlier in 2025 stripped the city of US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) from its budget, which local leaders warned would impact city services including law enforcement. A Bill to restore the funding has stalled in Congress. 

Still, Mr Trump depicted Washington as among “the worst places on earth” and said he would consider deploying more National Guard – or even the US military – to the city if he deemed it necessary. Pentagon officials resisted Mr Trump’s attempts to deploy the military during his first term in response to protests stemming from the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minnesota. 

Mr Trump previously signed an executive order that makes it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments on federal lands and get people into mental health or addiction treatment, a shift in approach from existing policies that have worked to find housing for homeless people first and then seek treatment opportunities for them. 

He also signed an executive order that created a panel to coordinate efforts to improve safety and address graffiti and vandalism in the city. 

Mr Trump has also sought to influence the city’s cultural life, naming himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts and threatening the Washington Commanders’ plan to build a new stadium in the city unless the team reverted back to its old name, which is widely considered to be a slur against Native Americans. BLOOMBERG