President Trump orders federal law enforcement officers to patrol Washington, D.C. streets
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump ordered an increased federal law enforcement presence across the streets of Washington, D.C. for the next week as he railed against the city's crime rate and continued to float a federal takeover of the nation's capital.
Trump directed the unspecified number of federal agents on the night of Thursday Aug. 7, just days after an assault on a high-profile staffer of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old nicknamed "Big Balls," was attacked by a group of teenagers during an early morning attempted carjacking last weekend.
"The Crime situation in Washington, just like our Southern Border where ZERO Illegals entered in the last three months, will be a safe place very soon," Trump said in an Aug. 7 social media post that highlighted the attack on Coristine. "Thank you for your bravery and heart."
More: Early DOGE staffer assaulted in DC during attempted carjacking
Federal law enforcement officials will concentrate in high-trafficked tourist areas and "other known hotspots," the White House said. It will begin as a seven-day effort with an option for Trump to extend "as needed." The additional federal officers are to be identified in marked units, according to the White House.
The move follows an executive order Trump signed in March that established a "Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force" composed of federal department heads who were instructed to "maximize resources" to make the District of Columbia safe.
'Washington, D.C. is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens. There will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in D.C."
Leavitt added that Trump is "committed to making our Nation's capital safer for its residents, lawmakers, and visitors from all around the world."
A spokeswoman for Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment.
The White House pointed to several examples of violent crime in Washington this year including the May 21 fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a downtown museum (The suspect is from Chicago.) as well as the recent assault on Coristine.
Nevertheless, Washington's crime rate is down this year compared to 2024. Violent crimes are 26% lower than last year. Homicides are down 12%, according to statistics compiled by the Metropolitian Police Department.
Crime in Washington also fell from 2023 to 2024, with homicides dropping from 274 to 187. Carjacking declined about 50% but were still above pre-pandemic levels, according to the Washington Post.
More: Trump says feds should 'take over' and govern Washington, D.C.
Trump has long denigrated Washington, D.C, which leans heavily Democratic. Earlier in the week, Trump threatened to take over governance of the district if the crime situation isn't improved ‒ something he floated previously in February.
"If D.C. doesn't get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they're not going to get away with it anymore," Trump said in an Aug. 5 post on Truth Social.
Such action would require approval by Congress.
The District of Columbia is a federal enclave under jurisdiction of the U.S. government. The District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973 gave the city local governance, including an elected mayor and city council. Two congressional Republicans, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, this month introduced legislation to repeal the Home Rule Act.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
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The Trump administration has been fighting a two-pronged civil rights battle against colleges and universities – demanding an end to DEI programs that the government says are discriminatory while also accusing several institutions of antisemitism in their handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus in 2024. In court filings involving Harvard, one of the last major holdouts, the Department of Education has pointed to the university's own report on antisemitism to claim the school ignored rampant discrimination against Jewish students and faculty members. 'Protestors followed and verbally harassed some Jewish students, vandalized Harvard's campus, and posted swastika stickers near Harvard Hillel's Rosovsky Hall,' a government brief says, citing Harvard's investigation. The university also released a report on discrimination against Palestinians and Muslims on campus – an issue not mentioned in the Department of Education's complaints. The Trump administration says Harvard has been talking to them behind the scenes about finding a way out of their legal standoff, which includes a second lawsuit in response to the administration's attempt to cancel Harvard's international student program, a move a court indefinitely put on hold in June. 'We're still in negotiations,' McMahon told Fox News last week. 'We are closer than we were. We are not there yet.' But Harvard President Alan Garber has told faculty that retaining its academic freedom without government-monitored 'intellectual diversity' – a major sticking point in early dealings with the administration – remains nonnegotiable, according to the student-run Harvard Crimson newspaper. 'Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,' Garber wrote in April when the school first filed suit against the government over more than $2 billion in frozen research funding. The fight continues to be costly for Harvard. A federal judge has not yet decided whether to order the government to turn the money spigot back on, causing budgetary pressure that prompted Garber to take a voluntary 25% pay cut. The administration's intense pressure on higher education programs and students has not been met with complete silence. An open letter signed by more than 600 college presidents in April called Trump's actions 'unprecedented government overreach.' 'We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,' said the letter. 'However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.' But Roth, one of the presidents who signed the letter, doesn't believe putting out one statement is enough. 'I was glad that they did, but I don't see many people sounding the alarm that this is an assault on the integrity of one of the most successful systems in America, the higher education system,' Roth said. Although not as prominent as Harvard or Columbia, Mount Holyoke is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research institution with a billion-dollar endowment, and Holley says its focus on women's issues has been a double whammy for its funding. 'If you are a researcher in this country, doing work on women's health, or doing work on women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), doing work on women in leadership, any research that has to do with women is being caught up in those government searches and is being canceled,' she said. 'When one of our research grants was cut, the wording from the federal government was that this kind of work related to gender is not beneficial and not scientific.' But the cuts have not only come from the Trump administration, according to Holley. She said some private funding sources are also stepping back and cutting grants because they are afraid to associate themselves with a school that might run afoul of the president. 'I would say that the estimate is about $2 million (in lost research funding), and that's both cancelations from the federal government directly and cancelations from private funders who fear what the federal government might do,' Holley said. At Wesleyan University – an institution in Middletown, Connecticut, with about 3,000 students – responding to the administration's policies and executive orders has meant reconfiguring some DEI programs. A summer camp program aimed at middle school girls in Middletown who were interested in STEM studies is now open to boys, as well. 'The fact is that girls weren't signing up for STEM as much as boys, so that's why we had that program,' said Roth. 'But it seemed to some boys – big boys, I guess – to be reverse discrimination.' With many other schools eliminating DEI programs or making them all but invisible, Holley believes that the quick moves to roll back those commitments, even without an immediate and direct legal threat, says as much about the schools as it does about the government. 'I think it is a representation of the fact that many organizations maybe did not believe in these principles as strongly as they said that they did, and the government has provided them with an out,' she said. After encountering limited pushback from its Ivy League targets, the Trump administration is moving on to public institutions, starting with freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA is now actively negotiating with the Trump administration over a possible settlement. A government draft proposal would have the university pay $1 billion dollars, CNN has learned. 'There is a possibility that this administration, once they are done kind of dealing with Harvard and some of the larger institutions that they may begin to turn to the small liberal arts colleges,' said Holley. Despite the millions of dollars at stake in a fight with an administration flush with recent victories, Holley insists her criticism won't be muted. 'My mom was raised in the Jim Crow South, you know, both of my parents survived the Jim Crow era in this country, and I'm a student of the civil rights movement,' Holley said. 'In these moments, I would never think of not speaking up.'
