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Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump delivers burgers and pizza to D.C. National Guard. The latest on his federal takeover, 10 days in.
Reports suggest that federal authorities have focused more on detaining immigrants and clearing homeless encampments than on fighting violent crime. Ten days after President Donald Trump ordered 800 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to crack down on what he described as 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor' in the nation's capital, Trump paid them and other federal agents a personal visit Thursday evening to praise their efforts — and deliver burgers and pizza. 'We're going to have the best capital ever,' Trump said. 'It's going to look better than it ever did.' Earlier in the day, the president implied that he would be patrolling the city's streets with law enforcement, but he returned to the White House immediately after the brief event. 'I'm going to be going out tonight with the police and with the military, of course,' the president had told conservative talk show host Todd Starnes. Either way, Thursday's presidential dinner delivery will draw attention to the events of the past week and a half — and raise questions about whether Trump's push to impose federal control over the city is working to reduce crime. To catch up, here are the latest beats in this developing story. Taking over the D.C. police — sort of By invoking Section 740 of the Home Rule Act — and unilaterally declaring an emergency in D.C. — Trump was able to take control of the District's Metropolitan Police Department last week. 'Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,' he claimed. 'And we're not going to let it happen anymore.' But when Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to replace current D.C. police chief Pamela Smith with an 'emergency police commissioner" in the form of Drug Enforcement Administrator Terry Cole, D.C.'s attorney general sued to block the move. 'If effectuated, the Bondi Order would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike," Smith wrote in a declaration filed in the suit. "In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive." On Friday, a federal judge effectively sided with D.C., saying that while Bowser must follow White House directives, the Home Rule Act does not grant the administration full control of the police force. As a result, Cole has been reduced to serving as an intermediary between the administration and the MPD — and Smith is still in charge of D.C.'s police. Boots on the ground No one is debating who commands the D.C. National Guard: the president, according to the Code of the District of Columbia. So there's been no legal pushback to Trump mobilizing an estimated 800 D.C. Guard members, some armed, to patrol the city. The same goes for the 500 federal law enforcement agents he's deployed from agencies such as the FBI. Over the last week, 'armoured vehicles have lined up near monuments and other tourist sites, and drivers have been stopped on a popular nightlife corridor,' according to the BBC. 'Helicopters from the police force for the national park system have swept through the sky.' And reinforcements are on the way. Responding to a Trump administration request, six Republican-led states — West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio and Tennessee — have pledged to send more than 1,100 National Guard troops to join their D.C. counterparts. A focus on immigration In addition to trying to install an emergency police commissioner, Bondi has also sought to end D.C. policies that prohibit local police from collaborating with federal immigration authorities and arresting residents solely for being in the country illegally. That issue is still being contested in court — but the same federal judge who blocked the Trump administration's total MPD takeover last week is allowing the White House to use city police for immigration enforcement (for now). The upshot is that so far, reports suggest that federal authorities have focused more on detaining immigrants and clearing homeless encampless than on fighting violent crime. Checkpoints are becoming increasingly common. Since Aug. 7, when Trump began surging federal agents into the city, 630 people have been arrested, according to the White House — 251 of whom were in the country illegally. That's a rate of 40%. Only about 5% of D.C. residents are undocumented immigrants, according to a recent Pew estimate. 'We're finding these criminally illegal aliens, and at the first opportunity we're picking them up, and we're sending them out of the country,' Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News on Saturday. Trump has also suggested that if his approach 'works' in D.C., he could export it elsewhere in the future. 'We're going to take back our capital," the president said last week. "And then we'll look at other cities also.' Questions about crime stats Increasingly, Bowser has been questioning Trump's motives, noting that while D.C.'s violent crime rate rose to historic levels in 2023 and remains a concern for many residents, it has fallen substantially over the past two years, as is true in most major U.S. cities, according to police data cited by the Justice Department. 'Our police department has been consistently precipitously driving down crime,' she said at a news conference Thursday, calling the department's work 'effective.' Bowser then added that Bondi's orders 'almost exclusively focused on immigration enforcement and homeless encampment enforcement,' rather than crime. 'I'll let you draw your own conclusions,' Bowser said. In response, the White House has questioned D.C.'s crime stats. On Monday, Trump accused the District of releasing 'Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety'; the following day, Fox News and other outlets reported that the Department of Justice is actively investigating claims that the MPD 'manipulated crime data to publish more favorable stats.' This isn't the first time such accusations have been leveled. In May, the city placed a police commander on leave to investigate whether he was manipulating crime data, and the head of D.C.'s police union has cast doubt on official numbers. But so far, there's no evidence of systemic or widespread tampering, and D.C.'s data aligns with national trends. According to the Associated Press, the average number of people arrested each day in Washington has increased by about 20% during the first 10 days of Trump's federal takeover. Play Farm Merge Valley
CNN
27 minutes ago
- CNN
CDC shooter may have tried to enter campus two days before attack
Federal agencies Crime Gun violenceFacebookTweetLink Follow The man who fired more than 500 rounds at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appears to have tried to get onto the agency's campus two days before the August 8 shooting, according to an agency email obtained by CNN. During the investigation, the CDC's Office of Safety, Security, and Asset Management and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation discovered video footage that shows a man resembling the shooter, Patrick Joseph White, trying to enter the CDC's main campus on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 6. He tried to enter the campus at the first guard station but was turned away by CDC security 'without incident.' The shooter did not attempt to enter the campus on Friday, August 8, prior to the attack, the email said. 'The video evidence does not 100% confirm the person's identity,' the email reads, but authorities believe the likelihood that it's White is very high. According to the email, which was sent to employees by Jeff Williams, CDC's head of security, it's not uncommon for shooters to 'probe' or scout a scene before an attack. 'This is an understandably distressing development, and we want to emphasize that CDC security measures were effective,' the email said. The agency email was first reported by STAT and Atlanta's 11Alive News. Before the shooting, White, 30, broke into his father's safe and took five guns. He killed DeKalb County Police Office David Rose and sprayed several agency buildings with bullets as employees were preparing to leave campus for the weekend. Instead, employees described taking cover under their desks as bullets whizzed over their heads. One staffer later said in an all-hands meeting that they felt like 'sitting ducks.' In the aftermath of the attack, CDC staff said they were not surprised to have become the targets of a violent attack after being smeared by federal officials as corrupt. On Wednesday, more than 750 HHS employees sent a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. imploring them to stop spreading false information about vaccines and denigrating public health workers. The letter, also addressed to members of Congress, noted 'the violent August 8th attack on CDC's headquarters in Atlanta was not random.' The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported that the shooter had expressed discontent with the Covid-19 vaccine and wanted to make his distrust known. An HHS spokesperson provided a statement from the department in response to the letter saying Kennedy 'is standing firmly with CDC employees – both on the ground and across every center – ensuring their safety and well-being remain a top priority. In the wake of this heartbreaking shooting, he traveled to Atlanta to offer his support and reaffirm his deep respect, calling the CDC 'a shining star among global health agencies.'' The statement continued on to say that 'for the first time in its 70-year history, the mission of HHS is truly resonating with the American people – driven by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's bold commitment to Make America Healthy Again. Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.' In an additional blow, roughly 600 CDC staff who had been placed on administrative leave earlier this year began received official termination notices this week. On Thursday, the CDC's Union said it had not been given advanced notice of the terminations and didn't have a full list of the programs affected. Some of the terminated staffers worked in the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. 'The cruel decision to move forward with these unlawful separations immediately after a violent attack on campus contradicts their stated commitments to promote the recovery of CDC staff and undermines the stability of our Agency. The decision to compound this trauma is not an oversight: this was a shameful, active choice. It must be reversed,' according to a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees, local 2883. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the AFGE's statement.
CNN
27 minutes ago
- CNN
CDC shooter may have tried to enter campus two days before attack
The man who fired more than 500 rounds at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appears to have tried to get onto the agency's campus two days before the August 8 shooting, according to an agency email obtained by CNN. During the investigation, the CDC's Office of Safety, Security, and Asset Management and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation discovered video footage that shows a man resembling the shooter, Patrick Joseph White, trying to enter the CDC's main campus on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 6. He tried to enter the campus at the first guard station but was turned away by CDC security 'without incident.' The shooter did not attempt to enter the campus on Friday, August 8, prior to the attack, the email said. 'The video evidence does not 100% confirm the person's identity,' the email reads, but authorities believe the likelihood that it's White is very high. According to the email, which was sent to employees by Jeff Williams, CDC's head of security, it's not uncommon for shooters to 'probe' or scout a scene before an attack. 'This is an understandably distressing development, and we want to emphasize that CDC security measures were effective,' the email said. The agency email was first reported by STAT and Atlanta's 11Alive News. Before the shooting, White, 30, broke into his father's safe and took five guns. He killed DeKalb County Police Office David Rose and sprayed several agency buildings with bullets as employees were preparing to leave campus for the weekend. Instead, employees described taking cover under their desks as bullets whizzed over their heads. One staffer later said in an all-hands meeting that they felt like 'sitting ducks.' In the aftermath of the attack, CDC staff said they were not surprised to have become the targets of a violent attack after being smeared by federal officials as corrupt. On Wednesday, more than 750 HHS employees sent a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. imploring them to stop spreading false information about vaccines and denigrating public health workers. The letter, also addressed to members of Congress, noted 'the violent August 8th attack on CDC's headquarters in Atlanta was not random.' The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported that the shooter had expressed discontent with the Covid-19 vaccine and wanted to make his distrust known. An HHS spokesperson provided a statement from the department in response to the letter saying Kennedy 'is standing firmly with CDC employees – both on the ground and across every center – ensuring their safety and well-being remain a top priority. In the wake of this heartbreaking shooting, he traveled to Atlanta to offer his support and reaffirm his deep respect, calling the CDC 'a shining star among global health agencies.'' The statement continued on to say that 'for the first time in its 70-year history, the mission of HHS is truly resonating with the American people – driven by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's bold commitment to Make America Healthy Again. Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.' In an additional blow, roughly 600 CDC staff who had been placed on administrative leave earlier this year began received official termination notices this week. On Thursday, the CDC's Union said it had not been given advanced notice of the terminations and didn't have a full list of the programs affected. Some of the terminated staffers worked in the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. 'The cruel decision to move forward with these unlawful separations immediately after a violent attack on campus contradicts their stated commitments to promote the recovery of CDC staff and undermines the stability of our Agency. The decision to compound this trauma is not an oversight: this was a shameful, active choice. It must be reversed,' according to a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees, local 2883. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the AFGE's statement.
