ABC anchor Kyra Phillips says she was jumped by half-dressed homeless man in DC
Phillips noted that many DC residents are witnessing the violence Trump has rallied against 'firsthand' — despite statistics showing crime in the District has been on the decline.
'In downtown DC, where we work, right here around our bureau, just in the past six months, there were two people shot, one person died, literally two blocks down here from the bureau,' Phillips said.
'It was within the last two years that I actually was jumped, walking just two blocks down from here,' she said. 'Just this morning, one of my coworkers said her car was stolen, a block away from the bureau.'
Phillips went into detail about the time she was jumped by a homeless person, saying the man was 'half-dressed' and 'wasn't in his clear mind.'
'It was scary as h***, I'm not going to lie, but I fought back,' she noted during an interview with Washington D.C. federal prosecutor Jean Pirro. 'I didn't see any weapons in his hands. I felt like it was my only choice.'
'We can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we're all experiencing it firsthand, working and living down here,' Phillips noted at another point in the segment.
Phillips shared her personal experience while reporting on Trump's latest order, which placed D.C. under federal command and dispatched the National Guard — two things Phillips said are 'going to help clean up homelessness.'
Trump's Monday declaration of 'Liberation Day' for D.C. came as the president raged that the city had been 'overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.' Trump vowed that his administration would be 'getting rid of the slums' and tackling what he referred to as the 'caravans of mass youth' who, he says, 'rampage through the city streets at all times of the day.'
Members of the National Guard hit the streets Monday night, alongside FBI and DEA officers, to support local police in maintaining order.
The White House said the effort yielded at least 37 arrests on its first night, including four narcotics charges and the seizure of 11 illegal guns.
Despite Trump's claims, statistics show that crime in D.C. has actually been on the decline in recent years.
Murder rates hit highs not seen since the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s and 90s two years ago, but have since taken a steep decline, according to statistics made public by the D.C. government and the Department of Justice.
Crime figures from the Metropolitan Police Department state that violent offenses have fallen steadily from their recent peak in 2023, and last year hit their lowest level in 30 years. They have continued to decline in 2025, according to preliminary data for the first half of the year.
Violent crime overall is down 26 percent year-on-year for the first eight months of 2025, according to the MPDC, while robbery specifically is down 28 percent for the same period. Homicides were up to 40 for every 100,000 people in 2023, a 20-year high but still well below 1990s levels. However, that number decreased in 2024 and continued to decline so far this year.
Trump claimed at his press conference that 'murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever.' When that claim was challenged, the White House said it was based on 'numbers provided by the FBI.'
Trump's decision was met with a mixed reaction — especially as the president's own Justice Department issued a press release touting Washington's declining crime rate just several months ago.
Trump's critics blasted the move, with some even accusing the president of creating a distraction from the administration's botched handling of documents related to the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Last month, the Justice Department and the FBI shared a memo stating there was no list of powerful people who had participated in Epstein's crimes. It also stated that Epstein died by suicide, and 'no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.'
The memo brought on quick backlash, including from Trump's MAGA base, as the president campaigned on unveiling the so-called 'Epstein files.'
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