President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C. and crackdown on crime seem to be bearing fruit, no matter how much Democrats gripe. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a spike in arrests in the nation’s capital city since Trump took over, with homicide suspects and drug dealers being among those charged. “Washington, DC is getting safer every night thanks to our law enforcement partners,” Bondi said in a social media post. “In total, there have been nearly 400 arrests — and we are not slowing down. We are committed to making DC safe again!” Bondi later added that 52 arrests were made Monday night, bringing the grand total to 465 arrests.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro also touted the federal crackdown’s success in a video posted to social media. “We’ve seized 21 illegal guns, we’ve made arrests for warrants on homicide, sexual predators, drug trafficking, illegal [immigrants],” she boasted. The prosecutor bluntly asserted, “If you want to be in D.C. and you’re a criminal, you’re not welcome.”

Charges have included homicide, sexual predation, narcotics, and firearm offenses, among others. In one instance, a member of the international criminal gang and officially-designated foreign terrorist organization Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) was arrested. In another instance, a D.C. National Guardsman stopped an assault. According to a press release, one of the guardsmen, who has been patrolling the city and assisting law enforcement per the president’s order, came across a Park Police officer being attacked while trying to direct traffic and apprehended the assailant. The guardsman, Hector Amaya, said, “That’s our purpose for being out here. I would have done that for anybody. I wouldn’t just see somebody get attacked and stood [sic] by. I would’ve acted and helped them.”

Despite the success of the president’s crime control initiative, Democrats have been complaining. In a Monday night interview, one of Trump’s most vocal critics, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), downplayed D.C.’s violent crime issues and suggested the president was overreacting. “This is just a recipe for chaos. And if this is the template for what he wants to do in all of these other so-called Democrat-run cities, it is a recipe for chaos,” Raskin said of the president’s move to mobilize the D.C. National Guard and federalize the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). “There’s no emergency here,” he added, calling on fellow congressional Democrats to vote to “nullify” the president’s declaration of a state of emergency. Independent D.C. City Councilwoman Christina Henderson argued that the president’s mobilization of the D.C. National Guard “is a manufactured emergency to distract Americans from other pressing national issues” and “an effort to provoke the residents of the district into some violent act.”

When criticizing the federal crime control effort, Democrats frequently cite MPD statistics allegedly showing a significant decrease in crime in recent years, reaching a supposed 30-year low. However, as The Washington Stand previously reported, the D.C. Police Union and others have accused high-ranking MPD officials of manipulating crime statistics to artificially represent a decrease in violent crime. According to D.C. Police Union officials, MPD elites will intentionally misclassify violent offenses as less-violent or non-violent offenses, to keep the reported crimes from showing up in MPD and FBI reports on violent crime statistics.

“D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!” Trump announced via social media on Monday. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into the matter. The probe will include MPD Commander Michael Pulliam, who was placed on administrative leave earlier this year after being accused of manipulating crime statistics, but will extend more broadly through the police force. D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton commented, “I think that there’s a possibility that crime has come down. But the department is reporting that in 2024, crime went down 35 percent — violent crime — and another 25 percent through August of this year. That is preposterous.” He added, “We’re out on the street. We know the calls we’re responding to.”

“When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably, there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on that scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense,” Pemberton explained previously. He continued, “What we’ve heard through our members and through members of management that were willing to talk with the union is that this is a directive from the command staff, is that they wanna make sure that these classifications of these reports are adjusted over time to make sure that the overall crime stats stay down.”