District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser reportedly told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to her city’s streets has not lowered the crime rate.
According to The Hill, Bowser, a Democrat, attributed the monthlong drop in D.C. crime to an increased presence of law enforcement agents bolstering the Metropolitan Police Department.
“What has worked is not the National Guard in helping enhance MPD services,” she told Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. “What has worked is more DEA, more FBI.”
Perry, a retired Army National Guard brigadier general, criticized the mayor for not bringing in the National Guard sooner to deal with what he called soaring crime. According to city statistics, violent crime is at its lowest point in 30 years, however.
“We don’t regard the Guard as a law enforcement agent,” Bowser told the panel’s lawmakers. “It’s not a law enforcement [agency] so we wouldn’t call on them.”
Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard soldiers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, FBI officials, and narcotics officers to the district in early August in an effort to crack down on what he’s alleged is rampant lawlessness in the nation’s capital.
There was a homicide in D.C. two days after the president announced he was ordering federal intervention, but there were no recorded homicides in the 13 days after. Four additional murders have been recorded since then, bringing the city’s homicide rate for the year to 108.
In her testimony Thursday, Bowser said that she is looking to continue the positive trend.
“Any crime is too much crime,” she told the committee. “But we’re trending in the right direction.”
According to The Hill, Bowser’s comments were subdued compared to those of D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who slammed Trump’s approach to city policing.
“Sending masked agents in unmarked cars to pick people up off the streets; flooding our neighborhoods with armed national guardsmen untrained in local policing; attempting a federal takeover of our police force — none of these are durable, lasting solutions for driving down crime,” Schwalb said at the Thursday hearing, adding that the president’s policies will “destroy critical trust between local communities and police, which is essential to effective, efficient policing and prosecution.”
CNN reported last week that Trump did not have a problem letting the order authorizing the federal takeover expire because Bowser issued an executive order that calls for indefinite collaboration with federal law enforcement.
“She committed to indefinitely coordinate with federal law enforcement,” a White House official told the outlet. “The key word is ‘indefinitely.’ That is what we want.”
Other White House officials confirmed Trump’s outlook on the expiring order and told CNN that the administration discussed its revised plans with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who previously said that the House would not vote for an extension.
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