Washington’s top leaders are sounding the alarm over President Donald Trump’s decision to flood the city with federal law enforcement, saying it has eroded public trust and undercut the District’s independence.
Testifying before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and Attorney General Brian Schwalb said D.C. needs steady, long-term support from Congress, not armed patrols on its streets.
They pointed out that violent crime has fallen to levels not seen in three decades. What the city needs, they argued, are investments in its police force, help filling judicial vacancies, and funding for facilities to better serve residents.
Bowser told lawmakers the Metropolitan Police Department should be restored to nearly 4,000 officers and that new infrastructure is essential to prepare the city for the future.
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Schwalb made it clear that the administration’s tactics are backfiring. “As the nation’s capital, public safety in the District has always required a strong working partnership with federal law enforcement, regardless of who is in the White House,” he said. “Declarations of emergency and unilateral federal actions, taken without coordination or advance warning, do not promote long-term public safety.”
He didn’t hold back on criticizing the federal presence, either. “Sending masked agents in unmarked cars to pick people up off the streets; flooding our neighborhoods with armed national guardsmen untrained in local policing; attempting a federal takeover of our police force — none of these are durable, lasting solutions for driving down crime,” Schwalb said. “In fact, this threatens to destroy critical trust between local communities and police, which is essential to effective, efficient policing and prosecution.”
Mendelson agreed, calling Trump’s emergency declaration “a manufactured crime crisis to justify an intrusion on the District’s autonomy.” He noted that with crime rates at a 30-year low, there’s no federal emergency for the president to solve. National Guard troops, he added, have spent more time “picking up trash and doing landscaping” than fighting crime.
Schwalb also addressed criticism that young offenders are being let off the hook. He said his office prosecuted 84 percent of violent youth cases last year, which included more than 90 percent of homicide cases, 87 percent of carjackings, and 86 percent of gun crimes.
The three officials pushed Congress to act on filling long-standing vacancies in the city’s courts and to provide funding for a psychiatric residential treatment facility for youth. Without those steps, they warned, the city’s progress on public safety could stall.
Bowser ended her remarks by looking ahead to the country’s 250th anniversary. “We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the nation’s capital to be the safest and most beautiful it’s been at any point in its history, not just for our residents, but for the millions of Americans who will come to Washington, D.C., to celebrate our country’s heritage.”