US president Donald Trump has deployed the national guard in Washington and taken control of the city’s police force, in the latest display of presidential power in cities across the country.
The president on Monday declared “a public safety emergency” in the capital and invoked for the first time a local law reserved for “special conditions of an emergency nature” to place the metropolitan police department under direct federal control, as well as deploying 800 national guard troops.
“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” said Mr Trump, flanked by senior government officials, including attorney-general Pam Bondi, who took control of the police force in Washington.
“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” he added. “This is liberation day in DC and we’re going to take our capital back.”
RM Block
While the capital ranks among the 10 deadliest cities in the US, data compiled by the city’s Metropolitan Police Department show that homicides dropped 32 per cent between 2023 and 2024 to the lowest level since 2019. There has been a further 12 per cent drop so far in 2025 compared with last year.
It is the latest effort by Mr Trump to use federal military power on American soil with deployments to crack down on what he says are criminal illegal immigrants. His actions have unleashed legal battles that have raised fundamental constitutional questions about presidential power.
[ Trump says homeless people must leave Washington DC ‘immediately’Opens in new window ]
Washington Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser, on Sunday, acknowledged there had been a “spike” in crime in 2023. But she said there had been a sharp drop in the past two years.
“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” she told MSNBC, adding she was “concerned” about the national guard enforcing local laws, given it was not “their primary role”.
When asked whether the president could take over the district’s police department, Ms Bowser replied: “There are very specific things in our law that would allow the president to have more control over our police department. None of those conditions exist in our city right now.”
Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The District of Columbia is a unique US jurisdiction – a small federal district with no statehood. While Congress has the final say over its budget and laws, DC has no voting representation on Capitol Hill. Its national guard reports solely to the president, rather than a state governor.
Mr Trump has criticised the authorities in Washington, a Democratic stronghold, for years. In March he signed an executive order to remove homeless encampments in the district, boost law enforcement resources and clamp down on illegal immigration.
“We have to get rid of sanctuary cities as quickly as possible,” Mr Trump said on Monday, renewing attacks against US jurisdictions that limit or bar co-operation with federal immigration authorities.
The president earlier this year federalised the national guard in California, deploying thousands of troops to clamp down on immigration and quash protests at arrests in Los Angeles.
Although many of the troops have since been withdrawn, the Democratic governor of the state, Gavin Newsom, is challenging their deployment in court. A trial is scheduled to begin in San Francisco on Monday. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
