Washington, D.C. – President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard and federal law enforcement personnel in Washington, D.C. is changing again. Some units are now allowed to carry guns. A Defense Department official says that select units on certain missions will be armed with either handguns or rifles. An Associated Press photographer saw members of the South Carolina National Guard, who are helping with the operation, standing outside Union Station with pistols in their holsters.
The joint task force in charge of the operation said in a statement that using force would be a “last resort and only in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.” The action is in line with a direction from the Defense Secretary last week and is part of the government’s larger plan to fight crime and homelessness in big cities.
Local and state leaders have criticized the President for sending these troops to Washington, D.C., saying he has gone too far. This rise in violence in the capital occurs at the same time that Trump is openly thinking about sending military-style deployments to other cities. On Sunday, the President said on his social media site Truth Social that he would “send in the troops” to Baltimore. The threat came after Maryland Governor Wes Moore asked the person to accompany him on a tour of the city to talk about public safety.
Trump has said several times that big cities ruled by Democrats are unsafe and full of crime. Muriel Bowser is the mayor of Washington, D.C.; Brandon Scott is the mayor of Baltimore; and Eric Adams is the mayor of New York. Moore is the governor of Maryland. Brandon Johnson, who is Black, is also the mayor of Chicago. The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke at a gathering in Washington, D.C., and said that the deployments are “laced with bigotry and racism.” He also said that no “white mayor has been designated” in the same way.
But the President’s allegations that crime is going up in these cities don’t always match up with official facts. For instance, the rate of violent crime in Baltimore has been going down. City statistics shows that the 200 murders that happened last year were 24% fewer than the year before and 42% fewer than in 2021. Between 2023 and 2024, violent crime as a whole went down by over 8%. Crime has also dropped a lot in Washington, D.C., with a 22% drop in total violent crime. During the time the National Guard was there, carjackings went down by 83% and robberies went down by 46%.
The President has continued to say that these cities are not safe, even if these numbers show otherwise. Democratic officials, such Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have aggressively opposed the idea of sending federal troops to the city. Johnson said the city will fight to stop “a military occupation.” Reports say that the Pentagon has been getting ready for a possible operation in Chicago for weeks.