Overview

• Trump invoked the Home Rule Act to declare a public-safety emergency, placing the Metropolitan Police under federal authority and ordering around 800 National Guard troops into Washington with FBI and DEA support.
• Metropolitan Police statistics show violent crime down 26% and overall offenses down 7% year-on-year, contradicting the president’s claims of a citywide crime surge.
• Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb denounced the takeover as unprecedented and signaled plans to challenge it in court over procedural and constitutional concerns.
• Demonstrators have held small protests decrying the intervention as authoritarian and criticizing efforts to clear homeless encampments.
• The White House indicated Washington could serve as a model for similar federal interventions in other Democratic-run cities, raising debates over national precedents.