President Donald Trump is taking matters into his own hands amid efforts to clean up the streets of the nation's capital.

Trump said he will be patrolling Washington, D.C., Thursday night alongside law enforcement to get a firsthand look at the state of crime in the city. Trump's patrol comes as he federalized the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed the National Guard earlier in the month to rein in violent crime in D.C.

'Within days of Trump's policies going into effect, crime rates plummeted across the city.'

“I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course," Trump told Todd Starnes Thursday. "So we’re going to do a job. The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job.”

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In 2024, D.C. experienced the fourth-highest homicide rate in the country, at 27.3 per 100,000 residents, which is nearly six times higher than New York City. The most recent figures are also a sharp increase from just over a decade ago, when the homicide rate was 13.9 per 100,000 residents in 2012.

The increase in homicides is part of a greater trend showing a rise in violent crime in D.C. Just last year, there were 29,348 crimes reported in D.C., including 3,469 violent offenses, 1,026 assaults with a dangerous weapon, 2,113 robberies, and 5,139 motor vehicle thefts.

But within days of Trump's policies going into effect, crime rates plummeted across the city.

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Recent reports show that D.C. has officially gone a whole week without a single homicide. Carjackings have also decreased by 83%, robberies have gone down 46%, car thefts have gone down 21%, and violent crime decreased by 22%.

As of Thursday, White House officials said there had been more than 630 arrests made since Trump took action on August 7. Of those arrests, 251 were illegal immigrants and three were known gang members.

"Until 4 days ago, Washington, D.C., was the most unsafe 'city' in the United States, and perhaps the World," Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday. "Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin!"

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Vance unloads on safety-hating protesters in DC, punches through liberal media rhetoric

Vice President JD Vance spoke on Wednesday with National Guard soldiers stationed at D.C.'s Union Station, underscoring his gratitude and continued support for their efforts to tackle crime in the national capital.

While the troops and members of the federalized Metropolitan Police Department appeared happy to see Vance — who was accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — liberal protesters threw fits at the sight of the vice president, whining about his presence as well as about the efforts by the Trump administration to make D.C. safer.

Vance smiled as he passed a bespectacled radical in the station screaming, "F**king Nazi," an unhinged woman yelling, "Health care, housing, and climate justice! ... Military out of our streets," and a man in a cap shouting, "Get the f**k out of my city!"

Supporters reportedly countered with, "USA! USA! USA!"

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When met with booing outside the Shake Shack at Union Station, Vance directed Hegseth's attention to the radical responsible and said, "This is the guy who thinks people don't deserve law and order in their own community."

'This should be a monument to American greatness.'

The defense secretary laughed, pointed, and then resumed his tour of the relatively safer station.

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Vance noted in his remarks to the National Guard soldiers that Union Station, like much of the district, has long endured an unacceptable level of crime.

RELATED: Trump to DC: Crime is a choice

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

"You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families, and they've done it for far too long," the vice president said.

It's not just addicts, hobos, and the insane who have made Union Station a dangerous place in recent months.

In February, six girls, ages 11 to 14, were reportedly arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman who was trying to leave the station. Police indicated that one of the girls filmed the savage attack. That same month, a man was gunned down inside the station's parking garage.

"This should be a monument to American greatness," Vance continued. "This should not be a place where parents of small children are afraid to bring them ... because we have empowered criminals over the people who actually need public safety in this city. So I think Union Station is a great example of what's possible when you have the political willpower to bring law and order and common decency back to the public spaces of the United States."

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After Vance stressed the importance of following through "until we make America and D.C. in particular a safe place again," a reporter asked him, "What evidence do you have or does the DOJ have — are you going to be releasing it?"

'Let's free DC from lawlessness.'

"Are you going to be releasing evidence of this?" the reporter continued.

Photo by Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images

"Of what?" Vance responded. "That D.C. has a terrible crime problem? You just gotta look around. Obviously D.C. has a terrible crime problem, and the Department of Justice statistics back it up, the FBI statistics back it up. Just talk to a resident of this city — this beautiful, great American city."

Adopting the "free D.C." slogan yelled by the leftist protesters outside, Vance said, "Let's free D.C. from lawlessness. Let's free Washington, D.C., from one of the highest murder rates in the entire world. Let's free Washington, D.C., so that young families can walk around and feel safe and secure."

Vance, once again referencing the noisy rabble outside, noted that it was "kind of bizarre that we have a bunch of old, primarily white, people who are out there protesting the policies that keep people safe when they've never felt danger in their entire lives."

Blaze News has reached out to Vance's office for further comment.

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DC Police Union Boss Says DC Officers Fudged Crime Data Under Orders From Superiors

'Take a report for a lesser offense'

The DC nobody talks about — and Trump finally did

President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration — placing the D.C. police under federal control — cited a now-famous stat: Washington, D.C., has higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rates than all 50 states.

Yes, even higher than my home city of Los Angeles.

DC is bigger than the Mall, and outside the quaint Capitol Hill and Eastern Market townhouses, the city sings a much different tune.

The order also noted that the city’s homicide rate — 27.54 per 100,000 residents — surpasses that of Havana, Cuba, and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Left-wing media immediately scoffed. They downplayed the numbers, pointing to D.C.’s “declining violent crime” stats — conveniently reported right after city leaders reclassified crimes like felony assault and carjacking as non-violent offenses.

It’s a neat trick to save face at the expense of victims.

In Georgetown, Woodley Park, and Chevy Chase, the chaos hides well. But walk through Columbia Heights or Dupont Circle and men strung out on drugs sprawl across the sidewalks. At Union Station, homeless people bathe in the historic site’s iconic fountains, just a few blocks from the Capitol.

“All cities have a homeless problem,” they say. Sure. But not all cities are the capital of the free world.

D.C. is bigger than the Mall, and outside the quaint Capitol Hill and Eastern Market townhouses, the city sings a much different tune.

A tale of two DCs

Take Anacostia.

This historically black neighborhood in Southeast D.C. has been ravaged by decades of violent crime and neglect in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Today, it holds an “F” public safety grade and ranks in the seventh percentile for safety nationwide. The neighborhood sees 12.3 violent crimes per 1,000 residents annually, with assault topping the list, followed by robbery, rape, and murder.

As D.C.'s cost of living explodes, many young residents — like my friends — are pushed into cheaper, more dangerous areas. They often choose Anacostia.

I’ve stayed with them several times. It’s the kind of place where you don’t stop at a red light. Homeless men stagger toward your car. Groups of young men tail you from stop sign to stop sign. If you're catching an early flight, you’ll see prostitutes walking home from the night before.

Residents of this once-vibrant neighborhood mourn what it has become. Times were never easy, but now crime has made it unlivable.

One neighborhood, a larger pattern

Anacostia isn’t an outlier. It’s the blueprint.

It’s the story of every community that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative and so gets ignored. As more staffers and young professionals move into these neighborhoods, perhaps they’ll finally draw some media coverage. But reform shouldn’t wait until political aides feel unsafe.

D.C. was meant to be the crown jewel of American cities. In many ways, it still is. But beauty doesn’t excuse such damning crime statistics.

Unchecked crime in forgotten neighborhoods is spilling into tourist hot spots and government grounds. Elites can’t ignore it any more.

Photo by ClassicStock/Getty Images

President Trump’s order is delivering what Anacostia residents — and so many others — should have received years ago: law, order, and the simple freedom to walk outside without fear.

That’s not too much to ask. That’s the bare minimum.

It’s a promise every American deserves.

So thank you, President Trump, for doing what should have been done long ago. I hope D.C. is just the beginning. Do L.A. next.

Trump’s DC take-back will end the BLM fantasy for good

When President Trump asserts federal control over Washington, D.C., half measures won’t do. To succeed, he needs to go all the way — and his plan to extend the federal presence in the district is a good start.

The 1973 Home Rule Act allows a president to reassert control over the Metropolitan Police Department for 30 days. Extending beyond that would likely require a congressional resolution or invoking emergency powers, either of which would trigger a Capitol Hill fight. Democrats’ push for D.C. statehood — and two guaranteed Senate seats — depends on convincing Americans that the district can govern itself. It can’t. The city’s experiment in representative democracy has failed as spectacularly as many regimes in the Middle East.

Federal control must apply the broken-windows model: Enforce the full criminal code to prevent larger crimes before they happen.

The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 gives Congress exclusive legislative authority over the nation’s capital. Home rule was the deviation, not the norm, from decades of relatively peaceful federal stewardship. This isn’t a “takeover” so much as a “take-back” — like taking away the car keys from a teenager who used the family sedan to run drugs and commit drive-by shootings.

Home rule should have ended long ago. One obvious moment came in 1990, when Mayor Marion Barry (D) was caught smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He infamously blamed his ex-girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore — an FBI informant — muttering to the cameras, “The bitch set me up.” That episode still looms large in the public memory, an emblem of the city’s dysfunction.

Decades of unchecked crime have made Washington, D.C., a national embarrassment. If it were a state, it would have the nation’s highest homicide rate. Carjackings — nearly 200 reported so far this year — are a prime example. More than half are committed by juveniles. A review of the D.C. Police Department’s own X feed shows that suspects overwhelmingly are black. This pattern holds across most violent crime categories, though officials avoid publishing full racial breakdowns in the name of political correctness.

That’s the racial dynamic at the heart of the Black Lives Matter policing debate, a fight the left has framed on two assumptions: first, that police and “systemic racism” are solely responsible for urban crime; second, that the solution is to stop enforcing the law in minority communities. These ideas drove policy after the 2020 riots, and the results have been disastrous.

Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images

Trump now has the chance to prove the opposite — that law enforcement can restore baseline safety and quality-of-life standards in urban America. A show of force alone won’t cut it. Federal control must apply the broken-windows model: Enforce the full criminal code, from violent felonies down to quality-of-life offenses, to prevent larger crimes before they happen.

The early signs are promising. Federal and MPD officers have set up vehicle checkpoints targeting illegal aliens, cleared homeless encampments, and increased patrols citywide. These actions should expand to cover the everyday infractions that feed D.C.’s climate of lawlessness — disorderly conduct, curfew violations, truancy, turnstile-jumping, littering, jaywalking, reckless driving, loitering. Residents know that these “small” crimes erode public order and stoke constant tension.

Once the federal government flips that culture, the tone of the city will change. Crime will fall. Visitors will return. And President Trump will have an unassailable case that restoring law and order in America’s cities is possible, desirable, and effective — with Washington, D.C., as the model for generations to come.

Vance unloads on safety-hating protesters in DC, punches through liberal media rhetoric

The DC nobody talks about — and Trump finally did

A tale of two DCs

One neighborhood, a larger pattern

Trump’s DC take-back will end the BLM fantasy for good

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A tale of two DCs

One neighborhood, a larger pattern

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