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President Trump announced Monday that the federal government would be taking over Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, flooding the city’s streets with National Guard troops and sending in the military “if it’s needed” — while looking to do the same in other major U.S. cities.

“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” Trump said at the press conference.

Trump has used the alleged attempted carjacking of a Department of Government Efficiency employee to mischaracterize Washington, D.C., as a dangerous city overrun with violence, despite official statistics showing historic declines in violent crimes.

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Data released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in January, revealed that total violent crime in D.C. was at a 30-year low in 2024, and had decreased by 35 percent from 2023. Homicides were down 32 percent from 2023; robberies were down almost 40 percent; and armed carjackings were down more than 50 percent.

But at Trump’s press conference he claimed, “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen........

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