(The Hill) - President Trump announced Monday that he was taking control of the District of Columbia’s police and deploying the National Guard.

Trump portrayed the moves, which will involve around 800 National Guard troops, as a response to high crime rates in the nation’s capital.

He said it was an attempt to “rescue” the District from “bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.”

Reporters in a packed White House briefing room received handouts just before the president spoke where the District’s murder rate was shown as higher than those of other international cities including Delhi, London and Bogotá, Colombia.

Police statistics, however, show that crime rates in the District have fallen sharply over the past two years. Violent crime is down 26 percent when compared year-to-date against 2024. L

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