President Donald Trump said on Monday that he is placing the Washington DC police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard to make the nation’s capital safer.
Mr Trump has promised new steps to tackle homelessness and crime in Washington, prompting the city’s mayor to voice concerns about the potential use of the National Guard to patrol the streets.
Ahead of a news conference, Mr Trump said on social media that the nation’s capital would be “Liberated today!”
He said he would end the “days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people”.
For Mr Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects a next step in his law enforcement agenda after his aggressive push to stop illegal border crossings.
But the move involves at least 500 federal law enforcement officials, raising fundamental questions about how an increasingly emboldened federal government will interact with its state and local counterparts.
More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, a person briefed on the plans said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are also contributing officers.
The person was not authorised to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department did not immediately have a comment Monday morning.
Mr Trump said he is invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to deploy members of the National Guard.
He compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others.
Mr Trump also said at his news briefing that his administration has started removing homeless encampments “from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks”.
“We’re getting rid of the slums, too,” he said, adding that the US would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi will be taking over responsibility for Washington’s metro police department, he said, while also complaining about potholes and graffiti in the city and calling them “embarrassing”.
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