A Week Without Murder: Trump’s Crackdown Restores Safety To Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. isn’t just any city, it’s our nation’s capital — where Americans go to conduct the business of our nation and to celebrate our history. More than that, it’s a place many call home.

Unfortunately, thanks to the work of local elected officials and their radical progressive policies, the District of Columbia is now incredibly unsafe.

A quick listen to reporters in the White House Press Briefing Room reacting to President Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown shows just how bad things have gotten. Many have personally been victimized in D.C., or at least have friends or family members who have.

And it’s no wonder. For years, local D.C. Council members have proudly proclaimed their plans to decriminalize entire swaths of problematic conduct and to only allow relatively lenient sentences even for those convicted of very violent crimes.

On top of that, council members have touted their plans to defund the Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC) and to impose onerous restrictions on officers while performing their duties.

The result? MPDC is facing a historic staffing crisis, with some saying it will take a decade or more for the force to recover and be fully staffed.

But, fortunately, President Trump and his administration have stepped in to take action to protect our nation’s capital — something the Framers of our Constitution always intended. Federal officials have the final say — and responsibility — for what happens in Washington, D.C.

As provided by the Home Rule Act, the president has directly taken control of the local police force. He has deployed D.C.’s national guard to help patrol and make up for the police department’s manpower shortage, and he has surged federal law enforcement resources — FBI, DEA, ATF, etc. — to help patrol too.

The initial results have been staggering. D.C.’s police union highlighted that in the first seven days of Trump’s law enforcement surge, carjackings dropped 83% compared to the same period a week earlier. Robberies dropped by 46%. Car thefts dropped by 21%. And violent crime overall dropped by 22%.

Even more shocking and welcome news is that for the first time in a long time, the District went an entire week without a murder committed within its borders. That’s even more impressive considering that murder rates tend to spike during the hot and humid summer months.

While President Trump has joined law enforcement to see firsthand what they experience while patrolling the streets and Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other senior administration officials visit and listen to deployed national guard troops around the capital, some local officials seek to frustrate these effective crime fighting tactics.

For example, D.C.’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the president, claiming that the Home Rule Act — and the Constitution — don’t really mean what they say.

Schwalb claims that the President can’t really control D.C.’s local police and that any actions must run through local officials — who generally oppose his efforts. There’s no discretion there for the mayor or the D.C. AG to second guess the president. It would be an odd situation for an inferior official to tell the president how to discharge his duties. And yet, that’s exactly what local D.C. officials are trying to do.

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But more to the point, it’s unfortunate that local D.C. officials and others on the Left are denying that there’s even a crime crisis in D.C. After all, denying a problem exists doesn’t make it go away.

Thankfully, President Trump and his administration are taking long-overdue and much-needed actions to transform our nation’s capital from a cautionary tale of the harmful results of progressive policies to a shining example of America’s greatness.

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Zack Smith is a legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.