D.C. mayor defends capital’s crime rates after Trump threatens to take over police : NPR

The mayor of the Columbia district, Muriel Bowser, listens to President Donald Trump during an event to announce that the draft of the NFL 2027 will be held at the National Mall, in the Oval Blank office on Monday, May 5, 2025, in Washington.

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The mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC, broke his silence Sunday in response to President Trump’s threats to take federal control of the national capital. Bowser defended the control by the district of his police service, said he was concerned about the deployment of the DC National Guard and celebrated a decrease of two years of violent crimes against the claims of the White House of violence outside control.

Last week, Trump directed the federal law enforcement organizations – notably the American Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals Service, among others – to increase their presence at DC after a former member of the White House staff was attacked in a car attempt. An official of the White House, not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed that nearly 450 federal officers had been deployed in the district on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, the president promised in an article on social networks to “make our capital safer” by removing the homeless and imprisoning, with a plan that will be announced on Monday at 10 am.

“I suspect that his announcement is that he increases the federal police forces, which he talked about,” said Bowser on Sunday in an interview on MSNBC – his first since the Federal of Trump took threats. “It can speak of an even greater number or longer periods.”

Bowser said she would continue to work with the president on their “shared priorities” to make DC a beautiful and safe city. But the mayor said that what the city really needed was prosecutors, judges and federal repairs, parks and buildings.

She also challenged the recent statements by the deputy chief of staff to the White House, Stephen Miller, who qualified the national capital as “more violent than Baghdad”.

“Any comparison with a country torn apart by war is hyperbolic and false,” said Bowser.

They recognized a crime peak in 2023, but said that there had been a steep drop in violence of two years since then. Data on district crimes show that violent crimes are down 26% compared to last year.

“We will continue to speak to the president, working with his people on problems which are a high priority for him,” said Bowser. “Now, if the priority is to show force in an American city, we know that it can do it here. But it will not be because there is a crime peak.”

Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard to DC, but force told NPR on Sunday that he had not yet been activated. Bowser said she was not in favor of their deployment.

“They are not law enforcement officials,” said Bowser. “So I’m concerned about this. And I just think that it is not the most effective use of our guard.”

Trump deployed the National Guard to DC during the 2020 demonstrations against the murder of George Floyd. And two months ago, Trump sent troops to Los Angeles in the midst of demonstrations against the president’s immigration application.

The president also played with the idea of taking control of the metropolitan police department, telling journalists on Wednesday that it was an “option on the table”. But Bowser denied that it was a realistic possibility.

“There are very specific things in our law which would allow the president to have more control over our police service,” said Bowser. “None of these conditions exist in our city right now.”

City law allows the president to take control of the DC police if “special conditions of an emergency of emergency exist which require the use of metropolitan police for federal purposes”.

On Sunday, DC police chief Pamela Smith ordered a minor curfew in the Navy Yard district – just south of Capitol Hill and which houses the Nationals Park. In order, Smith said that end -of -evening rallies in the neighborhood pose “a risk of substantial damage to public security”.

Under the authority of a recently adopted law, DC police prohibit the collection of nine or more minors in the area designated between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., the curfew begins on Sunday evening and takes place until Wednesday.

DC has a juvenile curfew across the city in place from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. of August 31.

In an article separated on Sunday, Trump said that Bowser “is a good person who has tried, but she has received many chances, and that crime figures were getting worse, and the city is only becoming dirty and less attractive.”