Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Three moves in DC
Yesterday, President Trump decried DC as over-run by "bloodthirsty criminals" and announced three actions:
-- That the DOJ will take over the DC police
-- That the National Guard will be deployed
-- That FBI agents will be assigned to the District
I'm curious about how each of these will be implemented. The DOJ takeover of the police department puzzles me, as I'm not sure who at the DOJ is actually going to do it. AG Pam Bondi was assigned the task, but being AG is already a full-time job. What that "takeover" will mean in real terms is TBD.
The National Guard deployment is probably not going to make much of a difference. DC includes about 44,000 acres. So if you deploy 2,000 troops to kind of watch out for crime, that is 22 acres per soldier. Setting aside a lack of training in police work, etc., if they are just observers it is silly to think that they will be much of a deterrent given the vastness of the task. If they focus on where crime most often occurs (which would make sense) they won't be in the more-visible areas where tourists and wealthier DC residents are found-- and I suspect that the point is to have them in those safer areas, unfortunately.
Assigning the FBI to the District is weird in that, well, there already is an FBI office there with plenty to do. If the intent is to have FBI agents serve as patrol officers, that is a terrible fit-- the rough equivalent of an FBI Agent in a police force is a detective: they are trained to solve crimes, not walk around looking for it.
There IS a way the FBI could be used that would be helpful, and that may be the plan, ultimately. If FBI agents were assigned to increase the clearance rate for murders and non-fatal shootings (especially the latter), it could have a real effect on gun violence. If that's the plan, I'm for it. But I fear that is not the plan.
