The National Guard started patrolling the streets of Washington DC on Tuesday night after President Trump announced the government would takeover policing in the city.
Troops with the National Guard arrived into the capital late on Tuesday night in a bid by the White House to curb violent crime.
Images of the troops started to pour in shortly after 8pm EST, showing camo clad officers being dispersed throughout the city.
Military Humvees also parked on the National Mall on Tuesday evening with officers standing close by.
The New York Times reported that they stayed in the area for two hours before leaving for what a nearby Master Sgt. described as a ‘presence patrol’.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that so far 23 people were arrested in the city with help from partners in a post to his X.
According to Patel one person was arrested on a search warrant for a previous murder charge while others were nabbed for unlawful possession of firearms.
Patel added that multiple people were also arrested for having outstanding warrants for DUI, while one was taken in for violating a restraining order.
‘These are just a few examples we are just getting started. When you let good cops be cops they can clean up our streets and do it fast’, he added.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that around 850 officers and agents had fanned out across the city on Monday and made the arrests.
The move by Trump was announced on Monday, the president said the move was to ‘rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor’.
Flanked by cabinet members Attorney General Pam Bondi, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Interior Director Doug Burgum, Trump said he would instruct federal law enforcement officials to deploy aggressive tactics against the city’s worst offenders.
‘You spit and we hit and we can hit real hard,’ he said.
The president also vowed to clear out camps of homeless people from Washington, DC parks and public lands.
Federal law officials began their citywide deployment over the weekend, ramping up a public display of force that was seen immediately by residents.
‘Our Capital City has been overtaken by violent gangs, bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen anymore,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to take it.’
Trump also highlighted recent horrific crimes in the city including a 21-year-old congressional intern who was hit by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting and killed.
As well as a former Trump administration official murdered in a carjacking, and a Democratic congressman who was carjacked at gunpoint.
Trump also recalled a ‘demented lunatic’ that stabbed an aide to Sen. Rand Paul in 2023 and a 3-year-old girl who was shot and killed near the Capitol.
The president’s claim that crime has spike has been contested by the D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has pointed to stats that show violent crime has decreased in the District since 2023.
Violent crime in DC is down 26 percent this year and in 2024 reached a 30-year low, with 190 homicides in 2024 compared to 274 in 2023, according to metro police department statistics.
‘The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive,’ Trump said in a Sunday night Truth Social post.
In April, Bowser announced the creation of a special police force specifically to tackle underage crime.
In an interview on MSNBC Sunday, she pushed back on White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller saying that D.C. was ‘more violent than Baghdad.’
The Trump administration is reportedly mulling over the creation of a ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’ that could be ready at a moments notice.
Internal Pentagon documents call for 600 troops to be ready at all times to deploy to American cities within approximately one hour, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Troops would be split between the east and west of the Mississippi River at military bases in Alabama and Arizona.
National Guard officials reportedly began drafting the plan between late July and early August.
Traditionally, the National Guard has fast-response teams prepared for their individual states; however, Trump’s new proposal calls for transporting troops between different states.
The documents estimate the earliest the program could be created is the fiscal year of 2027 with funding coming from the Pentagon’s annual budget.
Earlier this year, Trump deployed over 5,000 National Guard troops along with active-duty Marines to the Los Angeles area to quell protests denouncing his administration’s immigration policies.