Mixed signals over who's in charge of D.C. police after Trump takeover

Washington Post

3 days ago

A day after President Donald Trump said he would deploy the National Guard in the nation's capital, federalized the local police department and issued officers a far-reaching mandate to 'do whatever the hell they want' to curb crime, it remained unclear what new directives, if any, D.C. police would receive from their new federal managers.
District officials said they were still in command of the department, operating as usual having received no new orders from the Trump administration. The city's police chief, Pamela A. Smith, has been supplying ideas about how federal law enforcement could be used by D.C. — not the other way around, according to a D.C. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive, ongoing talks.
The White House, however, continues to project clear control. 'We plan to work with the D.C. police,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, 'but ultimately the chain of command is as such: The president of the United States; the attorney general of the United States; our DEA administrator, Terry Cole,' who she said 'is in charge of' the department and is 'working with the chief to ensure that law enforcement officers are allowed to do their jobs in this city.'
Meanwhile, D.C. officers, still tasked with daily patrols and tending to crime, remained confused Tuesday about whether and how their jobs would change, according to two officers and one police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. They said some were worried that the federal intervention threatened to erode the trust of many communities throughout the nation's capital. Others quietly rejoiced, hopeful about a switch-up in leadership.
'It was very encouraging to see everyone at the table, working hard together,' Cole said Tuesday in an interview on Fox News, describing an earlier meeting with senior D.C. police leadership and federal partners." We have direction. We have a vision on how we're going to reduce violent criminal activity in D.C.,' he said, praising the D.C. police chief as 'very accommodating.'
Trump's sweeping assertion of federal power Monday was the culmination of years of complaints about D.C. and the president's stated desire to rescue it 'from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, and worse,' despite a decline in incidents of violent crime year over year.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has disputed Trump's characterization but continued Tuesday to present an air of congeniality toward the White House and a commitment to shared priorities. Her focus, she told reporters after a meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Justice Department, 'on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have.'
Bondi called the meeting with Bowser 'productive,' writing on social media: 'We agreed that there is nothing more important than keeping residents and tourists in Washington, D.C. safe from deadly crime.'
Meanwhile, images of federal officers walking down city streets ricocheted across social media, email inboxes and local group chats as Trump's directives — and the scant details about what they mean in practice — enveloped the city in uncertainty.
Smith said Tuesday she has provided Cole with a 'strategic plan' about how resources will be deployed across the city, but declined to offer details.
The mayor's office declined to release the strategic plan and declined to explain why. Likewise, the office also would not release the notification that Trump said he made to Bowser triggering the section of the Home Rule Act that activated federal emergency control of police; a request for the correspondence is pending with the White House.
On Tuesday, when a reporter asked the police chief what the chain of command was, she responded, 'What do you mean?'
The mayor stepped in, saying the 'organizational chart' regarding who is in charge of D.C. police and how the department is funded and conducts itself has not changed.
'The executive order is clear. The president has requested MPD services, and our Home Rule Charter outlines the process. The president designated Bondi as his proxy to request services from me,' Bowser said.
The Home Rule Act says the president may 'direct' the mayor to provide him police services for federal purposes, and that the mayor 'shall provide' them to him.
But as of late Tuesday morning, the federal government had 'yet to call on those services,' said council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2).
'The chief of police is still in charge of not only the D.C. police, but of crime prevention and crime fighting in Washington, D.C.,' said Pinto, who chairs the council's public safety committee.
In Trump's first term, his administration considered taking control of the police force during the summer of 2020 racial justice protests, but ultimately didn't follow through, as D.C. officials warned such a heavy-handed approach would only exacerbate tensions in the city. He did use his executive power to send the National Guard onto city streets and deploy military helicopters. The D.C. police chief at the time, Peter Newsham, said then that his force 'would not respond well' to a federal takeover, warning of 'a morale problem.'
Five years later, Newsham still questions whether federal law enforcement is adequately positioned to pick up all the duties of D.C. police.
'I don't think federal officers are trained to do that kind of work,' he said in a recent interview.
Most D.C. police officers learned that Trump would take over their department from social media, messages from friends or the news. Their chief had not briefed them by the time she joined Bowser more than four hours later at a Monday news conference and addressed the world, according to the two officers and one police official.
One of the officers said he was relieved when he heard Trump's address, which he watched while reviewing arrests with prosecutors. He had long been hoping that Smith would repeal policies that he saw as unfriendly to cops — such as one around police pursuits, which requires police to bear some responsibility for the safety risks to suspects they are chasing.
Smith's first communication to officers came just before 6:45 p.m. Monday. In the email, reviewed by The Washington Post, she downplayed the takeover: 'Our relationship working with our federal partners is nothing new to MPD,' she wrote.
Hours before, the D.C. police union also emphasized in an email to members that the federalizing of D.C. police was a temporary measure, and stressed that the union did not think it would have any effect on its collective bargaining agreement.
'Thank you all for your patience while your leadership team navigates this unprecedented event,' concluded the email, reviewed by The Post.
The union came out in support of Trump's temporary control of the force, saying that 'crime is spiraling out of control' and that the department has been crippled by 'chronic mismanagement,' 'radical policies' and 'staffing shortages' in a statement Monday.
As of early August, there are currently 3,179 sworn members of D.C. police, according to a department spokesperson. The mayor and D.C. police leadership have previously discussed the goal of getting the department back to 4,000 officers.
Planning is ongoing for how the D.C. National Guard will operate on the streets of Washington, and it is not yet clear where Guard members will be or whether they will carry firearms, a defense official familiar with the operation said Tuesday afternoon.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussion, said one likely possibility is that Guard members will have weapons available to them, but not in hand. But the official said discussions could evolve with planning.
The Guard members are expected to be mainly in static positions in locations of the District that have not yet been finalized, the official said. It's unlikely that the troops will be in their body armor and helmets, considering the civil law enforcement nature of the mission, the official added.
'The idea here is to have presence and contribute to the community,' the official said. 'We're not picking the spots. It's in coordination with the police.'
Ellie Silverman, Emma Uber and Tara Copp contributed to this report.