During Mayor #MurielBowser’s presser, she noted #DC’s post-COVID spike in #crime & its drop.
"It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post COVID, but we worked quickly to put laws in place & tactics that got violent offenders off our streets & gave our police officers more tools, which is why we have seen a huge decrease in crime," #Bowser said.
#WashingtonDC #Trump #law #MilitaryState #military #NationalGuard #authoritarianism #autocracy #Gestapo
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/live-updates-trump-speak-national-guard-prepares-deploy-washington-2025-08-11/
Violent crime, including murders, spiked in 2023, turning #Washington into one of the nation's deadliest cities. However, violent crime dropped 35% in 2024, acc/to federal data, & it has fallen an additional 26% in the first 7 months of 2025, per city police.
"Crime isn't just down from 2023. It's also down from 2019 before the pandemic. And we're at a 30-year violent crime low. We're not satisfied. We haven't taken our foot off the gas," #Bowser said.
#DC #Trump #law #MilitaryState #autocracy
Mayor #Bowser answered questions about how the #federal #takeover of the #police will work.
"Let me be clear, as our #HomeRule Charter is also clear & the president's executive order restates Chief Pamela Smith is the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, & its 3,100 members work under her direction," Bowser said.
#Washington #DC #Trump #law #MilitaryState #autocracy
"The #HomeRule charter requires the mayor to provide the services of #MPD during special conditions of an #emergency, & we will follow the #law, though there's a question about the subjectivity of that declaration."
#Bowser also said that all law enforcement should be identifiable.
"We will continue to make this clear that this is needed in our city, that all law enforcement be identifiable by a uniform, a badge, a jacket, so that people know that they are law enforcement."
#Trump #MilitaryState
"I did not know that the request of #MPD (Metropolitan Police Department) would be made," Mayor #MurielBowser told reporters.
"I believed that they would announce that they were going to call up the #NationalGuard, I had a one brief phone call related to the National Guard issue over the weekend."
#Washington #DC #Trump #law #MilitaryState #military #NationalGuard #authoritarianism #autocracy #Gestapo
#Bowser noted that she could contest #Trump's decision, but added that his "authority is pretty broad" under the #HomeRule charter that gives the White House power to control #Washington, #DC police in the case of emergencies.
#law #MilitaryState #military #NationalGuard #FBI #authoritarianism #autocracy #Gestapo
Reverend #AlSharpton, the founder & president of #CivilRights org National Action Network, is organizing a late-August #protest against #Trump's #Washington crackdown.
"Let's call the inspiration for this assault on a majority Black city for what it is: another bid to distract his angry, frustrated base over his administration's handling of the #Epstein files," he said in a statement.
Some #Democrats shared the same critique on social media.
#DC #Trump #law #MilitaryState #JeffreyEpstein
The WH has dismissed reporting about #Trump's ties to #JeffreyEpstein as "fake news," though it has acknowledged his name appears in documents related to his case.
Rev #AlSharpton criticized Trump's reference to "slums" in Washington & his equating of #homeless people to criminals.
"We cannot, nor will we, take this lying down," he said.
Sharpton says he will lead a march on Aug 28 in downtown #NYC from near the courthouse where Trump was convicted towards a Trump-owned building on Wall Street.
The United States Conference of Mayors #USCM, a non-partisan org that represents #mayors of at least 1,400 cities, said in a statement it hopes federal officials will work on "a partnership – not a #takeover" in #Washington.
"Ultimately, the best public safety outcomes are delivered by local police departments & local officials, who know the communities. America’s mayors never see takeovers by other levels of government as a tactic that has any track record of producing results," it read.
#law
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