President Donald Trump took control of Washington, D.C.&#8217;s, police force on Monday, exercising his presidential powers over the nation&#8217;s capital to crack down on rampant violent crime.
The federal takeover of D.C.&#8217;s law enforcement comes in the wake of a brutal assault on a 19-year-old former Department of Government Efficiency worker earlier this month during an attempted carjacking.
&#8220;I&#8217;m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation&#8217;s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,&#8221; Trump said Monday. &#8220;This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we&#8217;re going to take our capital back.&#8221;
On Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, called Trump&#8217;s takeover of the city &#8220;unsettling and unprecedented&#8221; <a href="https://css.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/12/trump-dc-police-takeover-control/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">and</a> an &#8220;authoritarian push.&#8221;
But this is not the first time the federal government has come to the troubled city&#8217;s rescue.
In the 1990s, Washington, D.C., was drowning in debt because of a recession and the crack epidemic, among other issues. It had a $722 million deficit, and Wall Street had <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/appendix-1.pdf">dropped</a> the city to &#8220;junk&#8221; bond status, meaning loaning to D.C. was risky.
In April 1995, Congress established the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, which took over the city&#8217;s finances until 2001.
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During most of that period, the mayor of D.C. was Marion Barry, who was reelected after getting out of federal prison following his arrest for smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting operation.
The federal control board severely curtailed Barry&#8217;s power and quickly balanced D.C.&#8217;s budget, keeping it balanced for five years before relinquishing control.
During those years, the board mainly sought to clear out the rot of mismanagement primarily caused by corrupt local D.C. politics, such as firing the public school superintendent and installing a new one.
The federal board also asserted broad authority over the police department, which had fallen into chaos — investigations found drug money sitting around in boxes, an unguarded gun warehouse, and more than 135 bungled homicide cases.
Crime <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/10/12/problems-in-dc-police-dept-festered-for-decades/32610499-82a1-4234-b410-d50bab9365ca/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">dropped</a> sharply after the federal control board took political control of D.C.&#8217;s police department — violent crime sank 18% during the first year in 1997.
By 2000, violent crime in D.C. had <a href="https://ipfs.desmos.network/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Crime_in_Washington%2C_D.C..html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">plummeted</a> a whopping 40%, coinciding with a broader nationwide drop in crime, although the control board&#8217;s efforts were credited for much of the improvement.
&#8220;There was massive, positive, healthy, productive change. We went from being a joke to having the best equipment, having the best uniforms, massive policy changes for the better,&#8221; Joshua Ederheimer, a professor and 23-year veteran of D.C.&#8217;s Metropolitan Police Department, <a href="https://thenationaldesk.com/news/nation-world/dc-police-takeover-washington-trump-experts-university-virginia-maryland-metropolitan-home-rule-act-crime-financial-unified-approach-leadership-watchdog-national-legal-policy?utm_source=chatgpt.com">told</a> The National Desk this week.
&#8220;I can&#8217;t see how anyone can say that the federal takeover of the police department was bad because it transformed the agency,&#8221; Ederheimer said.
Public safety is also the reason for Trump&#8217;s takeover this week, and the D.C. police union is desperate for federal help.
&#8220;We completely agree with the president here that crime in the district is out of control, and something needs to be done about it,&#8221; D.C. Police Union Chairman Greggory Pemberton <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6376837699112">said</a> over the weekend on Fox Business.
The police union head cautioned that he believes police commanders are &#8220;ordered from the top&#8221; to make sure D.C. crime statistics do not look bad.
&#8220;This concept that crime is down is really an old trope,&#8221; Pemberton said. &#8220;They&#8217;re using the statistics in a way that makes it appear that crime is going down, but our rank and file officers know that we&#8217;re going call to call to call for armed carjackings, stabbings, robberies, shootings, homicides, and the crime isn&#8217;t going anywhere.&#8221;
&#8220;We welcome the assistance, and whether that&#8217;s federal agents or the National Guard we&#8217;ll use it, we&#8217;ll do whatever we can to get bad guys off the streets and try to keep citizens of the District safe,&#8221; Pemberton said.
The police union boss noted that federal agents assisting law enforcement is likely only a temporary fix.
The D.C. police force is authorized for 4,000 officers but currently has only 3,180, Pemberton noted, saying this is the &#8220;main reason&#8221; the force is struggling to keep the streets safe. Officers are logging two million hours of overtime a year, he said.
Pemberton said he hopes federal authorities will see how bad the situation has become.
On Tuesday, the city&#8217;s police chief, Pamela Smith, stood alongside Bowser and emphasized working together, saying the &#8220;enhanced presence&#8221; of federal agents would &#8220;make our city even better.&#8221;
About 850 federal agents deployed in D.C. <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/national-guard-troops-arrive-in-dc-federal-agents-seen-after-trumps-police-takeover/3973902/">arrested</a> 23 people, including murder suspects, and seized six illegal guns on Monday, the first day of the takeover, the White House said.

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The Feds Took Over The DC Police In The 90s, Too. Here’s How That Went.