President Trump is focusing on the role of FBI law enforcers in Washington, D.C., as part of his crackdown against violent crime. The FBI has dispatched around 120 agents to work overnight shifts to help local law enforcement prevent carjackings and violence. Trump wants to “stop violent crime” and tackle homeless encampments in the nation’s capital after signing an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people.
Trump began wielding crime statistics to make his case, including data that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) disputed on Sunday. He described federal action as “immediately clearing out the city’s homeless population and taking swift action against crime.” His aggressive approach echoes his focus on border security and migrant criminals, themes during his campaign and in the first six months of his second term.
Violent crime rates in Washington dropped 35% from 2023 to 2024, marking the lowest rates recorded in more than 30 years, according to a January report by the Justice Department. Trump reacted last week to social media and news accounts of car jackings and melees involving teenage attackers while continuing to describe the nation’s capital as unsafe, unsightly, and poorly managed by Democratic politicians. He and advisers say D.C. police and prosecutors are too lenient and call for juvenile suspects to be charged in the adult justice system.
The deployment of FBI agents to deal with local crime puts federal agents from the bureau’s counterintelligence, public corruption, and other divisions with minimal training in traffic stops out on the streets. In the nation’s capital, suspects as young as 15 can be charged as adults.
