Latest news with #NationalGuardsman
UPI
14 hours ago
- Politics
- UPI
Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. 'desensitizing' to military presence
1 of 5 | A National Guardsman and Humvee are seen outside of Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. President Donald Trump federalized the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and called up 800 National Guardsman in response to his declaration of a public safety emergency. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo Aug. 18 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump's declaration of a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., has again placed military soldiers on the streets of an American city. Despite data from local law enforcement showing a prolonged decline in the rates of violent crime, the president has invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, a provision that allows Trump to commandeer control of the Metropolitan Police Department, declare a state of emergency and unleash federal resources on the district. The move is unprecedented according to academics, historians and a former district official who spoke with UPI. "The federal government has the power to dictate terms to the city," Chris Myers Asch, a visiting history professor at Colby College in Maine and author of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital, told UPI. "In that sense, this is really about power. This is about power, not really about crime. President Trump is doing this in D.C. because he can. He's taking this sliver of authority and pushing it to its fullest extent." Trump's orders The president's executive order declaring an emergency in Washington says "crime is out of control," causing a threat to public safety and endangering public servants. The impetus for the declaration stems, at least in part, from the alleged assault on a former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency. Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old referred to as "Big Balls," by a group of teenagers earlier in August. Trump responded to reports of the assault with language repeated in his executive order. "Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control," he said. With the declaration, Trump has placed Attorney General Pam Bondi to oversee the Metropolitan Police Department for up to 30 days. Bondi is to monitor the emergency conditions and keep the president updated. She will also have the responsibility of recommending whether this federal intervention continues for the full 30 days or if emergency measures are no longer needed. David Super, professor of law at Georgetown University Law School, told UPI the president's authority to declare such an emergency and exercise executive power in this way is fairly broad. "Technically, the law allows the president to demand the Metropolitan Police Department's 'services' to meet federal needs," Super said. On Thursday, Bondi delivered orders to Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Department, appointing Terrence C. Cole, Justice Department Drug Enforcement Administrator, as the city's emergency police commissioner. Bondi also called for an end to so-called sanctuary city policies, which she attributed in part to increasing the dangers "posed by violent crime." Following this directive, Washington, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith issued an executive order to direct officers to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce Trump's deportation policies. During a press conference announcing the takeover of the police department on Monday, Trump added that he is deploying the National Guard to "restore order and public safety." "They're going to be allowed to do their job properly," Trump said. The National Guard took to the streets, sweeping homeless encampments and making itself visible to residents in the city. Other federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration have also been on patrol. The increased visibility of law enforcement and armed soldiers has drawn protests with demonstrators evoking the term "fascists." Mary Cheh, law professor at George Washington University, was a D.C. council member for 16 years, representing Ward 3 until 2022. She told UPI that Trump's orders will require city officials to "fall in line." "The local authorities will attempt to work cooperatively," she said. "When there's a federal decision, they'll just simply have to fall in line." The National Guard increases the visibility of law enforcement but it does not dramatically change enforcement capabilities, according to Cheh. The National Guard is not capable of carrying out investigations, making citations or processing an arrest. Those responsibilities remain with local law enforcement agencies. "The National Guard can detain people but not arrest," she said. "The 4th Amendment still applies. Their main function, so it seems, is being present, being seen." The Fourth Amendment protects people from being stopped and frisked without reasonable suspicion that they are armed and dangerous. Local reaction The local response from the public has not been as receptive to the federal takeover, based on discussions Cheh has had with fellow residents. "There are attempts to organize protests," Cheh said. "That will actually feed into [Trump's] desire to militarize the district." The bench trial over Trump's deployment of armed forces in Los Angeles, Newsom vs. Trump, began on Monday. In that case, Trump deployed soldiers in the name of immigration enforcement. The dynamics are different in the case of Washington due to the federal government having oversight over the district but the now repeated use of federal forces raises alarms, Cheh said. "It's desensitizing us. 'Let's get used to the military patrolling our streets,'" she said. "How do you do that? You have them do that and you have them do that again. That's one of the large consequences here. He showed this in California. He's already said he's going to be thinking about other cities, bringing in the military." "In D.C., people are very worried. They're worried about being intimidated by the presence of the military," Cheh added. "They're very worried that what will happen is something akin to what the local police did in New York. Stop and frisk without proper justification." Barbara Zia and Anne Stauffer, Washington residents and co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of D.C., told UPI the presence of increased law enforcement varies based on neighborhood and time of the day. The 5th Ward -- where there is a greater immigrant population -- east of the Anacostia River, Mount Pleasant and the busy nightlife district on 14th Street are among those that have seen the largest uptick in police presence. "I have heard reports of ICE particularly in my neighborhood in Mount Pleasant," Stauffer said. "It's been very dependent on where you live in the district and what time you were out. They are moving towards a 24/7 presence." "People are shocked," Zia said. "I don't think people were prepared for this." A coalition of 126 civil rights organizations signed a letter to members of Congress, urging them to use their Constitutional authority to push back against the president's use of executive authority. "In the place of proven strategies aimed at reducing and preventing crime, President Trump's decision to commandeer the police and fill the streets with National Guard servicemembers -- is not simply a matter of political theater and distraction," the letter reads. "It also poses a dire threat to longstanding efforts to foster trust between the police and the communities they serve, especially in light of President Trump's claim that he would allow the police under his command to 'do whatever the hell they want,' raising concerns that the civil rights of D.C. residents may be sacrificed in the process." Home Rule Act The Home Rule Act was passed in 1973 to grant Washington a level of autonomy. It has allowed residents to elect mayors and council members but with congressional oversight. Section 740 grants the president the ability to exert control over the Metropolitan Police Department for up to 30 days. Congressional approval is required to extend that control beyond 30 days. Super said it is unclear what the president means to achieve during this federal takeover. "The president has fairly broad authority to respond to unanticipated problems. Crime is hardly unanticipated," Super said. "Given that crime is declining in the district, it's hard to argue that it falls within the intent of the presidential authority to respond to things that are unanticipated." "Certainly there's concern when you take power outside the legal mechanism in this case by making a finding that is clearly not truthful," he continued. "No one has identified something the Metropolitan Police aren't doing that they ought to be doing. There are arguments that they need more prosecutors and judges. More police doesn't fix that." There are no firm mechanisms in place to check Trump's use of executive power in this instance, outside of legal intervention, according to Super. "If he wants to do this once to score some political points and distract from the discussion of the Epstein files, he's going to get away with it," he said. "If this becomes a habit and going along with it turns out to not be the way of resolving the problem, you can certainly imagine a number of groups would challenge this as being contrary to the authorizing statute from Congress." Cheh is not confident legal intervention would be effective. "I don't see any immediate counter to what he is doing," she said. "There's nothing requiring him to specify or justify, but only to make an effective finding in his own mind about whether we have an emergency on our hands. That's one of the gaps in the law as it is. The framers here thought whoever was president would make a judgement that was consistent with what most of us would regard as an actual emergency." Federal control and the role of race Since the Home Rule Act was passed, no president has made a serious attempt to revoke this local control, though the government has intervened in local affairs on several occasions. Asch told UPI that D.C. has often been a sort of "laboratory" for federal officials. "D.C. is often a battleground for national policy," he said. "It's often a laboratory for federal officials to try out ideas that they might want to take nationwide." Long before Home Rule, D.C. was at the center of the nation's reckoning over slavery. As a southern city, slavery played a prominent role in the local economy. In the 1860s, Charles Sumner led a charge of abolitionists, considered radical Republicans at the time according to Asch, to make the city an example of equality for the rest of the country. "He and the radical Republicans eliminated slavery in the city before the Emancipation Proclamation over the objections of local White residents who were the voting population at the time," Asch said. "Many local district leaders, White leaders, complained that the federal government was usurping their local authority." The federal government used to control D.C. through unelected commissioners that were appointed by the president. This ended when Home Rule was passed. "The fear of Black political power was a major reason why Congress stepped in in the 1870s to strip away the right to vote from all voters, Black and White, and turn the city basically into a creature of the federal government," Asch said. "For a century after Reconstruction, the fear of Black political power kept the government very much in charge of the city through three presidentially-appointed, unelected commissioners." Race continues to play a role in the perception of the city. Presidents including Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, as well as members of Congress cast doubt on local leaders, mayors and council members, many of whom were Black. They cast crime as being emblematic of the incompetence of these officials, Asch said. "Race is inextricably intertwined with the city's history," he said. "You have the presence of a large, visible, very active Black community from the founding of the city that has been a major animating force," Asch said. "Particularly in terms of the relationship between the federal government and the local population." Federal officers, National Guard patrol Washington Residents keep with their normal routine and run past National Guard troops on the National Mall near the Washington Monument on August 12, 2025. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Former National Guardsman reveals troop duties in DC deployment
Former National Guardsman Chuck DeVore discusses the National Guard's role and responsibilities while deployed to combat crime in Washington, D.C.
New York Post
10-08-2025
- New York Post
Aspiring National Guardsman, 19, killed by drunk driver days before birthday at California bus stop
An aspiring National Guardsman was struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver at a California bus stop just days before his 20th birthday, according to police and his heartbroken family. Ricky Ray Reyes Jr., 19, was pronounced dead at the scene after the unidentified driver jumped the sidewalk and plowed into him while he waited for the bus at Del Paso and El Centro roads in North Natomas Wednesday afternoon, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Reyes, a deli worker and former Junior ROTC cadet who devoted his weekends at the Army National Guard Base in Sacramento, had just finished a tour at a local trade school when he was tragically killed, his devastated loved ones said in a GoFundMe, which has since raised more than $22,000. 3 Ricky Ray Reyes Jr., 19, was killed by an alleged drunk driver while he waited at a bus stop in North Natomas. Ricky Ray Reyes Jr (Reray)/GoFundMe 'My son, he was amazing, way better than I was,' his father, Ricky Reyes Sr., told CBS Sacramento, adding that his son was a master at making sandwiches. 'Beautiful soul, loving, caring, always giving.' The future soldier was just eight days shy of his birthday when he was mowed down. 3 He was a former Junior ROTC cadet who spent his weekends at the Army National Guard Base in Sacramento. Ricky Ray Reyes Jr (Reray)/GoFundMe The motorist – who officers allege was under the influence – was taken to an area hospital with injuries following the deadly crash. The sloshed suspect, whose identity has not been released, has since been arrested and remains hospitalized, police said. Reyes' death marks the 97th motor vehicle-related fatality in Sacramento County this year, Isaac Gonzalez, founder of Slow Down Sacramento, told the outlet. 3 Police said the alleged drunk driver jumped the sidewalk and fatally struck Reyes. CBS News 'It's absolutely heartbreaking,' Gonzalez said. 'And the data is pretty eye-opening. It shows you that it's a systemic problem across our county but also that there's clusters, so there are specific areas where we are seeing multiple fatalities.' City officials are reportedly investigating the deadly crash sites to determine if changes to the area could prevent future accidents.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
3-Year-Old Survived Infamous Plane Crash as Mom Shielded Him and Brother: 'We Were the Last Thing She Was Holding Onto'
They called it a "Miracle in the Cornfield," when United Airlines Flight 232 went down in Iowa in 1989, killing more than 100 people Spencer Bailey, 3, was one of the survivors along with his big brother and his rescue was captured in an iconic photograph In a rare interview, Bailey is looking back at the crash and its aftermath and his life nowSpencer Bailey, then not quite 4, was immortalized by a photo of a National Guardsman carrying his tiny, limp body away from the 1989 United Airlines Flight 232 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, that killed his young mother and 111 others. Now, as Bailey nears 40, he made time to return to what remains of Runway 22 at the city airport, where the plane first went down before sliding into a nearby cornfield. The asphalt is not really tended to these days, and weeds grow up through the cracks. That's as it should be, Bailey tells PEOPLE. 'There's sort of a beautiful metaphor that quite literally reflects the sort of scars and the temporal nature of lingering trauma,' he says. 'But also being able to grow past it.' Bailey thinks a lot about time. A journalist and author, who now lives in New York City, he co-founded media company The Slowdown and has a podcast called Time Sensitive. His 2020 book, In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials, examines different kinds of tributes, like the one in which he is featured: a statue based on the photo of his rescue, which was unveiled a few years after the crash. And this particular moment in time — this moment, right here — has special meaning for him. 'My mom was 36, so this year marks the amount of time she spent on Earth,' Bailey says. 'Obviously I carry my mom with me. I'm so grateful for those three years and 11 months we had together, but I have no memory of them.' Nor does Bailey remember the titanium fan disk in the passenger jet's engine breaking at 37,000 feet in the air, causing an explosion above the Iowa cornfields on a flight from Denver to Chicago. In the unfolding chaos, he didn't know that the spiraling debris sheared through the plane, cutting all of the hydraulic lines needed to steer the craft. And he was unaware of the 44-minute battle being waged in the cockpit as Captain Al Haynes and his crew struggled to make an emergency landing at Sioux Gateway Airport. Of the 296 people on board, 184 lived. Bailey's older brother, Brandon, who was 6, later told him how their mom, Frances, draped her arm around them as the aircraft's tail section ripped off — ejecting their bank of seats as the plane slid to a stop, upside-down. Brandon, legs broken, was severely injured. Spencer suffered brain trauma and went into a five-day coma. Frances "Francie" Lockwood Bailey, a wife, teacher, artist and children's clothing designer, died protecting her boys. 'There's a sense that she's always been looking over us. It's incredible for me to think [we] were the last thing she was holding onto,' Spencer says. 'I wonder, had she not put us down into the brace position, had she not put her arms over the backs of us, would either of us not be here?' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Spencer's twin, Trent, and their dad, Brownell, were not on the flight. After learning of the crash, Brownell raced to get to his sons. He knew Brandon was at the hospital, and a relative told him about a photo they'd seen — that was already spreading in the news — that they believed was of Spencer. Spencer says the crash left 'our family broken,' with a single dad struggling to raise three boys after losing the love of his life. Brownell, 71, never remarried. He became his sons' primary caregiver until they all left for separate New England boarding schools. Though Spencer and Brandon were both survivors, it was Spencer who became linked, forever, to the tragedy. 'I never really saw myself in that image,' he says, remembering the day in 1994 when the family returned for a memorial in Sioux City and the statue was unveiled. 'It felt unworldly. It felt like something that was foisted upon me, a small form of celebrity I never asked for,' he says. Public interest in the crash spurred a 1992 TV movie, A Thousand Heroes — also known as Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232, starring Charlton Heston — as well as documentaries and books, including Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales, published in 2015. Spencer says he didn't participate in the Gonzales book but learned a great deal about what happened to him that day through the interviews. He discovered that a woman on the plane, Lynn Hartter, was the one who originally found his body in the wreckage. She handed him off to Lt. Col. Dennis Nielsen, who had been part of the National Guard unit training that day at the airport and was helping get the survivors to safety. "God saved the child. I just carried him," Nielsen later said of Spencer. Spencer's own memories of that time are largely incomplete. He remembers waking up in the hospital after the crash, but that's it. In that sense, he says, his conscious life started then — so he thinks of himself now as 36, not 40. All previous memories had been wiped away. Oddly enough, Spencer says he's never been afraid of flying, crediting the 'resilience of being a 4-year-old and having no memory of it,'' he says. But then last summer, when returning from a honeymoon in Japan with his wife, Emma, they experienced a horrific return flight. About 45 minutes after takeoff, passengers began feeling some light turbulence, which got to the point where the plane was consistently experiencing 10 to 15 foot drops in the sky — which lasted for three hours, Spencer says. 'This experience, even talking to you right now, I feel it in my body and it brought up some very, very deeply buried whatever [that] I experienced on July 19, 1989. I felt some semblance of it on this Delta flight back home,' Spencer says. 'Other passengers were screaming and crying and vomiting, and my wife and I managed to keep our cool. But when the plane landed in Minneapolis ... I was still shaking.' And in a Forrest Gump-like coincidence, Spencer had moved to N.Y.C. early in his media career and was working at Esquire on the 21st floor of the Hearst Tower when he saw another miracle landing, of Capt. Sully Sullenberger on the Hudson River. After his own plane crash experience, he says 'to experience from that vantage was very, very strange.' 'I feel these different markers of time allow me a moment to process and think. And anyone who goes through something like this — if you're not always processing it, you're fooling yourself," he says. 'I know I will be processing this for the rest of my life.' With time, his small family has gotten bigger. His dad is the grandfather of four: Spencer's brother Brandon, an entrepreneur, has two daughters and Trent, an artist, has a son and daughter. One of the grandkids nicknamed Brownell "Big Da." 'I think for him it's been so rewarding to watch us grow up and each of us build our individual lives, to be at our weddings, to be at our graduations, to celebrate those moments together,' Spencer says. 'It feels like my mom is still here in some sense," he adds. "Her legacy lives through my brothers and me in the ways that we see and the ways that we engage the world.' Recently married, Spencer has another summer memory he'll never forget: the beautiful day on July 18, 2023, when he asked Emma Bowen to be his wife. 'For so long, every time July 19 would come around, it was a well of emotion. And now, every time July 18 comes around, it's also a well of emotion — but it's the birth of this new life and this new love,' Spencer says. 'And there's something really poetic to me in the fact that these two dates now sit side by side.' Read the original article on People
18-06-2025
- Politics
Padilla says in Senate 'it's time to wake up' after forced removal from Noem's event
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Alex Padilla on Tuesday encouraged Americans to peacefully protest against President Donald Trump's administration and said it's 'it's time to wake up' in his first extended remarks in the Senate since he was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's press conference in Los Angeles last week as he tried to speak up about immigration raids. In emotional remarks on Tuesday, Padilla, a California Democrat, recounted the altercation, in which security forced him out of the room and onto the ground after he tried to ask Noem a question. Padilla said that even though he was accompanied by a National Guardsman and an FBI agent, "I was pushed and pulled, struggled to maintain my balance' and ended up flat on his chest on the floor. 'I was handcuffed and marched down a hallway repeatedly asking, 'Why I am being detained?'' Padilla said as several of his colleagues from both major political parties sat in their chairs and listened. 'Not once did they tell me why.' He said he wondered in the moment if he was being arrested — he wasn't — and, if he was, what the city and his family would think. 'What will a city already on edge from being militarized think when they see their U.S. senator being handcuffed for just trying to ask a question?' Padilla said. In a statement afterward, the Department of Homeland Security said that Padilla 'chose disrespectful political theater' and that the Secret Service 'thought he was an attacker.' The statement claimed erroneously that Padilla did not identify himself — he did, as he was being pushed from the room. 'Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers' repeated commands,' the statement said, adding that officers acted appropriately. Padilla said he attended the press conference amid the immigration raids that have led to protests in California and around the country and as the Republican president sent military troops to his state. He said he spoke up after he heard Noem say that they wanted to 'liberate' Los Angeles from Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats. 'Let that fundamentally un-American mission statement sink in,' Padilla said. Padilla and his angry Democratic colleagues have framed the episode as intimidation by the Trump administration, especially as it came days after Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal charges alleging she assaulted and interfered with immigration officers outside a detention center in New Jersey while Newark's Democratic mayor, Ras Baraka, was being arrested after he tried to join a congressional oversight visit at the facility. Padilla encouraged Americans to speak out. 'No one is coming to save us but us,' Padilla said. 'And we know that the cameras are not in every corner of the country. But if this administration is this afraid of just one senator with a question, colleagues, imagine what the voices of tens of millions of Americans peacefully protesting can do.'
