President Donald Trump gathered his top cabinet officials on Monday to declare that they are collectively cracking down on violent criminals who are running rampant throughout Washington, D.C.
Violent criminals have murdered and viciously attacked victims in D.C. in the course of just a few years, prompting the Trump administration to take swift federal action to hold violent criminals to account. Among many major developments, Trump signed an executive order to deploy the National Guard and declared a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to put violent criminals behind bars.
“This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we’re gonna take our capital back. We’re taking it back. Under the authorities vested in me as the president of the United States, I’m officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act and placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control … In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they’re gonna be allowed to do their job properly,” Trump announced. (RELATED: Trump Calls For DC Homeless To Be Moved ‘FAR From The Capital’)
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Trump also signed “statutorily required notification letters” to Democratic Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and relevant committee leaders in the U.S. House and Senate, White House staff secretary Will Scharf announced. A separate executive action signed by Trump was a presidential memorandum directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to utilize the National Guard and to work with state governors to deploy their National Guard troops.
“These are bold, decisive steps intended to combat the out-of-control crime conditions we’ve seen on D.C.’s streets for far too long and I, for one, am deeply proud to be part of an administration that is finally coming to terms with these issues,” Scharf said.
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The president formally declared a “public safety emergency” in the nation’s capital and named Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the MPD as of Monday. He further announced that Terry Cole, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), will serve as the interim federal commissioner of the MPD.
“Today, we’re formally declaring a public safety emergency. This is an emergency. This is a tragic emergency … But people come from Iowa, they come from Indiana and then they get mugged?” Trump said. “Not gonna happen. Keep coming, because by the time you get your trip set, it’s gonna be safe again and it’s gonna be clean very quickly.”
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With the help of congressional Republicans, Trump then vowed to eliminate “no cash bail” policies across the country. The D.C. Council adopted the policy in the 1990s, which allows defendants to be released from jail before their trial without needing to pay money as a condition for their release.
“This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city’s leadership, the radical left city council adopted no cash bail. By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster,” Trump said. “That’s what started the problem in New York and they don’t change it. They don’t want to change it. That’s what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was one thing that’s central, no cash bail. Someone murders somebody and they’re out on no cash bail before the day is out. We’re gonna end that in Chicago, we’re gonna change the statute.”
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U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro stated that the administration needed to change the D.C. City Council’s laws to ensure that they can hold violent, juvenile criminals to account.
[T]he laws are weak. I can’t touch you if you’re 14, 15, 16 [or] 17 years old and you have a gun. I convict someone of shooting another person with an illegal gun on a public bus in the chest [with] intent to kill. What does the judge give him? Probation, says that you should go to college. We need to go after the D.C. Council and their absurd laws,” Pirro said.
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Pirro pointed to Javarry Peaks, a 19-year-old who shot an individual in the chest on a Metrobus, who got his prison sentence suspended under D.C.’s Youth Rehabilitation Act (YRA) and instead received probation. The YRA allows judges to grant suspects under the age of 24 the chance to avoid incarceration with the exception of a murder case.
Hegseth told reporters that other specialized law enforcement and National Guard units will be deployed in the coming week to assist the troops deployed by the administration.
“At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in. Other National Guard units, other specialized units, they will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners,” Hegseth said.
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The Defense secretary said that this move has been successful in Los Angeles, California, where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots broke out over the agency’s crackdown on illegal immigration in the area. He said that the 10,000 troops at the U.S.-Mexico border have successfully brought down illegal border crossings to an all-time record low.
“Be tough, be strong, we’re right behind you,” Hegseth continued.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced that his agency will set up a task force in D.C. to ensure that law enforcement receives the intelligence they need in order to appropriately arrest violent felons. The director stated that when this same task force was set up in Virginia, 545 violent felons were arrested and prosecuted in just one month.
“When you let good cops be cops, when you give them the intel they need, when you work with our Homeland Security task force, when you work with Terry … and when you have the DOJ and President Trump driving behind this mission, we are going to clean up Washington, D.C., and we’re going to do it the right way, the lawful way and we’re going to make sure Washington, D.C., is safe again,” Patel said.
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The administration’s actions came after high profile violent crimes took place on the streets of D.C. in just a matter of months. The final straw appeared to be when Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer Edward Coristine, also known as “Big Balls,” got severely beaten after he intervened in the carjacking of a woman on Aug. 5.
A gang-related shooting on June 30 killed 21-year-old congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym near a Metro station after the suspects emerged from their vehicle and opened fire on a crowd of people. Two Israeli Embassy staffers were also fatally shot outside of the Capital Jewish Museum on May 22 by 31-year-old suspect Elias Rodriguez.
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