WASHINGTON, D.C. — Washington residents are living under nightly checkpoints and constant National Guard patrols after President Donald Trump seized authority over the city’s law enforcement and declared the nation’s capital under federal control, Geoff Bennett reports for PBS.
According to PBS, almost 400 people have been detained since Trump’s takeover last week, with troops in the capital joined by hundreds sent from Republican-led states including Mississippi and Louisiana.
National Guard troops are scattered across Washington, stationed at various parts and landmarks of the city.
“Nightly checkpoints have become routine in some areas of the city…as have protests against the increased security presence,” Bennett reports.
PBS reporters canvassed the city on Monday, asking residents for their thoughts on the federal takeover and covering the demonstrations.
“We don’t have the sort of crime problem that President Trump is describing. People do feel safe,” D.C. resident and retired George Washington University professor Jeff Levy told PBS while at a demonstration. “What the rest of the country needs to understand is, while they have more legal basis for doing it in D.C., this is their goal across the country.”
In the televised PBS report, protesters could be heard chanting, “Protect D.C.!”
Other demonstrators came from surrounding areas to join the protests.
“They’re trying to make it less and less safe and make you more and more scared, so I hope people will just stand up and let their voices be heard, because most people do not want this,” one protester told PBS.
Those new to the area, like Lorena Bowie and her son Jahsiah, an incoming student at American University, see D.C. as “one of the safest places [they] have been,” with “not one hint of some sort of crime epidemic,” according to PBS.
While visiting the National Mall, the mother and son witnessed National Guard troops on patrol, some stopping to take photos with tourists, Bennett reports.
“The National Guard is walking by. So these are the first officers that we do see. I was expecting them to be all over the place, and I guess little by little they are coming through everywhere,” Lorena told PBS. “To me, it’s extremely sad because this is not what this country was founded on.”
Despite Trump’s claims that Washington is in a “crime emergency,” the Justice Department reported violent crime in the capital is at its lowest point in 30 years.
“I generally feel safe. I go out at night. Fortunately, I do live in a neighborhood that is relatively safe,” Jeff Menzer told PBS. “It actually has an ongoing police presence because it’s on Capitol Hill, but random crimes do happen.”
The Trump administration has cited juvenile crime as a reason for the federal takeover. Juvenile crime has declined since the pandemic, as it has in other cities nationwide, Bennett reports. However, following a high-profile attack on a Trump administration official by a group of teens, the administration appears to have zeroed in on youth crime in the capital.
“I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told PBS.
Some residents who live and work in areas of D.C. with higher crime rates welcome the National Guard. Sajib Uddula and his wife own a convenience store in Northeast D.C. and have experienced vandalism and robbery by dozens of teenagers at a time, they told PBS.
“It’s like more than 30 kids robbing us, and they show up like more than 30 minutes later. That’s when I don’t think there are enough [officers],” Uddula said to PBS. “They might be busy somewhere else, [but there] is not enough police around here.”
Despite the couple’s openness to increased security, they told PBS they have yet to notice a difference in law enforcement presence.
“Of course, they’re going to be over there quiet, because it’s close to the White House or the Capitol or something,” another business owner, Tamika Alston, told PBS. “They need to have it more in the D.C. area, where they know the crime is.”
Abdullah Saleem, owner of a boxing gym in the city’s Trinidad neighborhood, has not seen a difference in his community but supports Trump’s actions.
“We need order in our city. If you don’t have no order, you ain’t got no city,” Saleem told PBS. “I have been seeing a lot of atrocity, a lot of murders, a lot of innocent children, a lot of innocent babies, and there’s nothing done about it.”
Bennett reports that while a majority of the effort seems to be focused on the area surrounding the White House, troops have appeared in some high-crime areas of the city, with some residents criticizing their presence.
“They start pulling up, just instantly hopped out, stopped razzing us, put one of my homeys in handcuffs,” a 19-year-old resident of Ward 8 in Southeast Washington told PBS. He recorded a video of federal agents from various agencies at a housing complex where he and his friends were hanging out late in the evening, Bennett says.
“They had firearms. They had big weapons, and we didn’t have nothing but just ourselves to protect and make sure everybody was good. They are just basically harassing us for real,” the man told PBS.
Other residents and business owners agree crime is a problem in Washington, but do not believe the White House can “solve it by force alone,” Bennett reports.
“People getting pulled over left and right. I seen checkpoints everywhere. I felt like I was in a foreign country,” Nathaniel Long, co-owner of the District Alley bar, told PBS. District Alley is in a lively part of Northwest D.C., where social media has shown crowds reacting to new checkpoints, according to PBS. “It’s like a takeover instead of, like, let’s add some aid and let’s work with the local authorities and city. I mean, it’s like a bull in a china shop. And it doesn’t have to be that way,” Long said.
Many D.C. residents are especially skeptical of Trump’s plans for the city, Bennett says, given that House Republicans have withheld the capital’s budget and the White House has made cuts to police, security and the courts.
“They told us they was coming every today. Like, so that’s basically what I’m expecting, for them to come every day,” the Ward 8 resident told PBS.
“The problem is, the threat is always going to be there,” Menzer told PBS. “This administration, this president has a pretty short attention span, that they will have to move on to something else, and perhaps they will release the Epstein files.”
“We have gone through many dark times before, and I think this is just another dark time,” Jahsiah Bowie told PBS reporters. “And I do believe that it’s up to us as citizens to stay active and to not give up or give in.”
While the president is only authorized to control the city’s police force for 30 days, Trump has already said he wants that limit extended, Bennett reports.
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