By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Thursday night that there will be increased presence of federal law enforcement in the nation’s capital to combat crime for at least the next week, amid President Donald Trump ‘s suggestions that his administration could fully take over running the city.
“Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.”
She added that the increased federal presence means “there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in D.C.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining — but could face steep pushback.
“We have a capital that’s very unsafe,” Trump told reporters at the White House this week. “We have to run D.C.”
The White House said the increased law enforcement would “make D.C. safe again” and would be present on the streets starting at midnight — led by U.S. Park Police following an 11 p.m. Thursday roll call at an established command center.
The push will last the next seven days with the option to extend “as needed,” under the authority of Trump’s previous executive order establishing the Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The added federal officials will be identified, in marked units and highly visible, the White House said.
Participating law enforcement include personnel from the U.S. Capitol Police, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
The police forces for Amtrak and the city’s Metro rail service are also involved.
However a two-hour tour of the D.C. streets, starting around 1 a.m. Friday morning, revealed no evidence of the sort of multi-agency flood of uniformed personnel described in Trump’s announcement. There was a robust, but not unusual, Metropolitan Police Department presence in late-night hot spots like 14th Street and along Florida Avenue. But there was no overt or visible law enforcement presence other than the MPD.
Trump has long suggested crime and violence is on the rise in Washington, and has lately begun to criticize things like litter and graffiti. But the catalyst for the order to increase police presence was the assault last weekend on a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency by a group of teenagers in an attempted carjacking.
The victim, Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls,” was among the most visible figures of DOGE, which was tasked with cutting jobs and slashing the federal bureaucracy. Police arrested two 15-year-olds and say they’re still looking for other members of the group.
“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this week.
The president subsequently said he was considering repealing Washington’s limited Home Rule autonomy or “bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly.”
Thursday’s announcement comes as Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government can claim to have reduced the number of homicides and carjackings — both of which spiked citywide in 2023.
Carjackings in Washington overall dropped significantly the following year in 2024, from 957 to just under 500, and the number is on track to decline again this year — with less than 200 recorded so far more than halfway through 2025.
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