Maryland leaders tell Trump they don’t need the National Guard to curb gun violence

Baltimore – In a specific demonstration of solidarity against President Donald Trump, state leaders and local leaders crossed one of the most badly served districts in Baltimore on Friday evening in the midst of continuous efforts to curb armed violence.

These efforts work, said Governor Wes Moore. Baltimore homicides have reached historic stockings with reduced decreases from 2023. He said that the last thing Baltimore needed is the presence of the National Guard that Trump threatened.

“We do not need occupants,” Moore told a host of police officers, anti-violence defenders, local clergy and other community leaders who met in the Northwest Baltimore Park Heights district.

Moore wrote a letter to the president last month inviting him to visit Baltimore and see his recent first -hand success. Officials attribute the progress of their crime combat strategies, which include social services intended to combat the deep causes of violence.

In a climbing of climbing on public security, Trump responded to the invitation by calling Baltimore “a horrible and horrible deathbed” and by insulting the leaders of Maryland.

“I am not walking in Baltimore at the moment,” he said.

Its refusal prompted state leaders and local leaders to present a strongly united front.

Moore, an American army veteran, criticized Trump for having used members of the National Guard to send a political message in a “purely theatrical” strength show.

The mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, joined the governor on Friday in his childhood house in Park Heights. The major sprawling black community in the northwest of Baltimore suffered from decades of divestment, but Scott wanted to invest in its future. Park Heights once boasted of a flourishing economy and picturesque streets bordered by trees surrounding the historic course of the Pimlico race. But the white flight and other factors have led to an increase in poverty, violence and economic decline rates.

While the group was starting to walk, they sang: “We have everything we have, we have everything we need.” They exceeded a store with a dollar and other dilapidated companies. They refused a residential street where people praised the porches of the brick lines.

Kevin Myers, a longtime resident of Park Heights, climbed in his truck when the group passed. He said that the leaders of Baltimore make him proud.

“Let Trump know that you can manage Baltimore,” he shouted to the mayor, who smiles in response.

Another man briefly heckled the group, saying that the event was just a stroke of the media, and not proof that elected officials are really determined to help the community.

Scott has repeatedly accused Trump of using racist rhetoric and targeting cities led by blacks with its promises to deploy troops from the National Guard. In remarks after walking, he urged Baltimore residents to repel this rhetoric.

“Do not shrink. Stay standing right now,” he said. “So in a hundred in years … They will know that you have resisted fascism, that you resisted racism, that you resisted people who were trying to destroy your democracy.”

Earlier this week, the president renewed his threats to send troops from the National Guard to Baltimore, although he appeared more on Chicago. He has already sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington, where he also federal the police. He said that he was planning similar movements in other cities led by Democrats, even as a federal judge, on Tuesday judge the illegal Californian deployment.

This is not the first time that Trump has been aiming for Baltimore. He previously described the city “disgusting disgust, rats and rodents”. These comments occurred among the president’s attacks against the Democratic representative Elijah Cummings, whose district included Baltimore until his death in 2019.

In his letter to the president, the Governor of Maryland noted recent reductions in federal funding for violence intervention programs. He asked Trump to “be part of the solution, not the problem”.

Homicides and Baltimore shots have dropped over the past two years. The city recorded 201 homicides in 2024, the lowest annual total in more than a decade and a drop of 23% compared to the previous year. The downward trend continued throughout 2025, including the lowest number of homicides recorded for the month of August. It is a relief for Baltimore, where violence increased after the death in 2015 of Freddie Gray and subsequent manifestations against police brutality.

Although Baltimore figures are particularly dramatic, other cities also see post-paid-in-law reductions in violence.

Baltimore officials say that it is because they adopt a holistic approach to public security, instead of relying solely on the police. The city is investing in historically neglected communities to help resolve the countless factors that perpetuate the cycles of armed violence: despair, unemployment, poverty, mental health, drug addiction, housing instability, poor conflict resolution and more.